Money on my Mind
by olirulz111
Summary: A fanfiction requested by bravekid (/u/849066/). An alternate perspective of the events surrounding 'Thieves in Time' with a twist. Reviews are appreciated. Contains violence.
1. Making Time

**Chapter 1 – Making Time**

**Bentley's Lab, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 10:45pm 25****th**** March 2013.**

Another day of hard work down, and another night of hard work begins without time for transition. Every day seemed to be like this for the duo of Bentley and Penelope as they worked tirelessly to finish their secret project, a time machine. It was almost complete, they were both more concerned about who should test it if anyone at all. They didn't want either of their lives to end prematurely as they were transported through space and time without knowing where they had gone or indeed if they had gone anywhere at all and had not simply been vaporized in a single visceral instant. It's not that they didn't have confidence in their new machine, they were two of the most brilliant minds on the planet that no one in the public knew of, but time travel had never been done before and that in itself is scary.

It sat like a fountain in a courtyard, prominently in the middle of the main area so that they could see how it rose from the ground and turned into this large box with a multitude of dials and readings on the side giving the approximate date, time and place of where and when the transported item was meant to go. The machine was big enough to fit a person inside, just one at a time though with it's polycarbonate semi circular window that created a tubular space inside that backed onto a huge array of sensors and scanners concealed behind a steel plate also bent into a curve to make the interior consistently cylindrical. The main problem with building a time machine is the required computing power it needs to scan every single atom inside the chamber, it wouldn't be good if only parts of someone were transported, leaving someone dead and the ground messy. Therefore, a powerful but reasonably compact supercomputer was built to count and remember every single cell and it's exact position so it could be all transported without distortion. A normal computer could be used but it would weeks to do tiny objects like a pea, but this is no normal computer of course.

In fact, the main problem was much more basic than that and it was something that Bentley and Penelope with their collective genius could not figure out an alternative to. This machine needed an object from the time and place where the object was going to be transported to in order for it to locate the correct time and place. It meant that the choice of destinations was dependent on what they had and could not chose their destination at will, which frustrated Bentley greatly. Having something out of his control made him feel less secure about it's use, knowing that they needed a present day object to always get back to the right time and other objects so that they could go to certain times, most of which were already figured out. They wanted to just go 5 minutes back at first to make sure that nothing went wrong and they could test the various paradoxes and rules associated with time travel so they could set some sort of rules.

"Just tell me why we can't use carbon-14 again?" Penelope asks Bentley as she installs more processors onto the machine.

"Because it only gives us the time and not the place of the object. It could put us kilometres underground, trapped in an oil deposit or molten lava." Bentley rebuts as he writes more code for the time machine.

"I'm sure if we pursued this idea, we could figure it out." Penelope optimistically says.

"I just don't see it happening." Bentley argues.

"Theoretically, we just have to figure out why the place of an object actually matters in where the machine goes." Penelope thinks out loud.

"We've already talked about this and this is the only way I can see this happening successfully and without failure or worse..." Bentley explains, imagining himself at the end being stranded somewhere remote and barren with no computer or internet in sight. "…Is that we stick with this method, I know it's not ideally what I want, but It'll have to do for now."

"I don't suppose you have a scanning tunneling microscope somewhere around here." Penelope jokingly asks.

"You and I know perfectly well that we can't fit one in the space we have. If we extend it out it's possible." Bentley wonders.

"Perfect, It might be a bit noisy for the next few days but it'll be worth it." Penelope says as she walks off from the machine after putting in the last memory board for the night.

"Are you done already?" Bentley asks.

"It's not hard once you do a lot of them." Penelope replies.

"Economies of scale." Bentley mutters to himself. "Well, goodnight."

"Same for you if you actually go to sleep." Penelope says, almost out of sight.

"I don't need sleep, I need answers; theories; possibilities and solutions." Bentley explains as he deletes a line of code.

"Whatever you say." Penelope says as she leaves the room and into her personal quarters. They may be in love and very close to each other, but they are not the type to get intimate. It is more of a working relationship than a personal relationship but no one would tell them that, it's as close to love as either of them had ever felt before. Penelope shuts the door on her room and opens up a laptop on a small desk that's littered with papers and other trinkets that should have been thrown away but yet can't be let go. She wouldn't let go of any of her ACES memorabilia, including the many trophies and pennants and posters of herself disguised as the once infamous Black Baron; all of that is adorned all over the room where there is space to do so. She looks up a manufacturer of her desired new toy and promptly orders one for a large sum of money, an amount of money that would make 3rd world countries feel appalled. The delivery is what surprised her most, they can get one in next morning, it's way too good to be true, but when one shells out millions on a high tech quantum microscope, once could expect such expedient delivery.


	2. Not Very a Fradel

**Chapter 2 – Not Very a Fradel. (Pronounced Fray-del)**

**The Next Morning. 6:58am. 26****th**** March 2013.**

"Fradel Inc. for Penelope." A computerized voice repeats inside the lab through every speaker. It's brings to an end their sleep and gets them out and quickly changed into something slightly more presentable. When the two of them meet in the corridors, Bentley isn't that impressed.

"Who is that?" He asks, irately as he didn't like being woken up after staying up till 3:30am coding.

"The microscope. Ordered it last night." Penelope answers.

"You actually bought one?" Bentley asks.

"Yeah, it's here right now." Penelope says, happy that her theory can be pursued finally. "I'll go meet them up right now."

"You go do that whilst I, I go back to sleep." Bentley says, his voice laden with drowsiness as he wheels himself back into his room to get back to sleep for another few hours. Penelope meanwhile walks towards the cargo lift which is a plinth which can fit a van on it as it's lifted by the silent operating magnets lining the outside. She rides up the elevator to street level where a normal garage door opens, just like the cover they need to keep this lab a secret. Once the door is rolled up above the entrance, it shows a black van with 3 passengers in the front all wearing red mechanic clothing with the company logo embroided on one side and their name on the other. The passengers of the van get out whilst the driver waits in the back driveway for instructions.

"You must be Penelope." A seemingly friendly slim red haired cat named Benjamin on his overalls says to the mouse as he lends out a hand for a handshake.

"Nice to…" She says but she is instantly shocked with all the voltage coursing through her body bringing her to the ground, unable to move. Benjamin removes the small electrodes from his right hand and pulls out the wires than ran up his sleeve to a battery pack attached to his shoulder with a Velcro strap. The other passenger, slightly taller and heavier but also stronger comes and picks up Penelope over his shoulder and brings her around to the back of the empty van and places her down carefully, they don't want any harm done to her. The second passenger Timothy manages to apply some restraining devices to her before the paralyzing effects of the electric shock wear off. Timothy shuts the van doors from the inside and sees Benjamin get in beside the driver.

"Go now." He urges as the driver reverses back down the narrow and long driveway that is lined with brick walls on either side.

"Wha?" Penelope says as she wakes up from her shock.

"Give me something." Timothy urges to the front. "Something to calm her down, quickly."

"Where?" She mutters as she tries to move her arms but can't due to the fact that they are tied with zip ties behind her back.

"Now would be good." Timothy exclaims.

"Where are you taking me?" Penelope asks without fear as she rolls over to sit up. She isn't afraid of the kidnapping itself, plane engines have cut out on her mid flight. But she can see the grey furred cat in the red cotton mechanic suit appealing to the front for something. When he realizes that she is speaking to him, he turns and watches her intently, making sure that she'd not attack him or escape.

"It's not far, 2 hours at most." He replies with a friendly assurance that to Penelope is anything but.

"How much do you want?" Penelope asks, hoping she can buy them out.

"We are very well paid, our employer is good to us." He remarks.

"What do you want with me?" She asks.

"We want nothing with you, we do our job, nothing more." Timothy replies.

"And that is?" Penelope asks.

"Not for our knowledge." Timothy completes as the van turns so they can exit the driveway, they moth try and balance themselves as the van accelerates negatively then positively as the drive to their destination.

**8:54am.**

All she can see through the rear windows of the van and through the front windshield are old stone facades of buildings that line each side of the street they drive down. The cat who watches her in the back is slumped in the opposite corner of the van with seemingly infinite patience and with no desire to do anything else but watch her. It has well and truly made it awkward for Penelope this trip. He can't see her clearly anymore as the van drives into an under ground car park beneath on of the buildings. The carpark is half full and doesn't look like it's hostile at all, there is no security, no weapons visible to her at all. The van parks in front of a single elevator on the opposite side of the entrance. The driver and Benjamin open the rear doors simultaneously, whilst Timothy grabs Penelope by the arm and helps her out of the van and to the elevator flanked by the other two. The driver presses the up button for the elevator and the stainless steel doors open without any waiting, allowing the four of them inside. The driver presses the button for the top floor then gets out and returns to his van as the doors close in on them. Penelope thinks about taking them out, but even with their skinny bodies she doubts they'd be push overs.

The red LED display turns to 4 and the doors open, revealing a plain office floor with cubicles set around the room with the morning sun shining in as they make calls and type at their computers. But Penelope is escorted to the right and away from the general workplace and into the back room with a 'restricted' sign on the door. Weirdly, to Penelope's surprise, none of the workers seemed to take notice of her as she walked past. The room behind the restricted door that had no locks of any type on it is very small, with only a secretary in this 3 by 3 metre room working at her desk.

"9 o'clock appointment." Benjamin says to the secretary.

"Right on schedule, this way please." She says as she gets out of her chair and open the door to Penelope's right which reveals a cozy mahogany laden office with a library of book and a fireplace on the left, old paintings adorn the crimson walls and a small but grand chandelier hangs by a copper chain from the roof. At his desk sits Thomas Fradel, according to the golden name plate at the front of his large mahogany desk, also a cat but definitely not as skinny as the other two and not as young approaching his fifties. His suit bulges under his pot belly that is squeezed into his body by his white buttoned shirt. He is only slightly taller than Penelope, around 165 centimetres tall but he acts as if he was taller with the way he carried himself whilst he walked towards the four entrants into his office.

"Thank you Margret, and thank you Benjamin and Timothy as he proceeds to hug each of them like is their father and they all accept it happily.

"And you must be Penelope, I heard you'd be joining us today." Thomas exclaims as he opens his arms for a hug. The fat cat embraces her with a suffocating love similar to whenever Murray hugged someone a bit too tightly.

"I'm sorry, it's just, I'm so happy today. Full year earnings are through the roof." Thomas exclaims as he walks back to his desk and sits in his chair. Penelope is confused at all their happiness, or even at the reason for why she is here.

"Mr. Fradel." Penelope begins.

"You're working for my number two, keeps me on my toes every second or else I'd not be in a job, am I right?" He asks as the three employees laugh with their CEO at their joke.

"Can't you just tell me what's going on?" Penelope asks.

"I don't know all the details, my job is to keep this company earning a profit as we rise out of recession." He explains. "I'll tell her that you are ready to come down stairs."

"What does your company do?" She asks as Benjamin and Timothy grab her by her arms to secure her.

"This is a bank." Thomas simply replies. "We make peoples dreams come true."

The four of them exit the office as the secretary goes to her desk and the three go back to the elevator and instead take the stairs to go downstairs literally. The spray painted numbers on the concrete elevator shaft that the stairs spiral around go from 4 down to G then none appear at all despite another three flights descended where they reach the concrete bottom with only one inconspicuous door opposite the bottom of the stairs.

"We are not permitted in here, follow the corridor to the end and walk on the carpet." Timothy explains as he swipes a keycard to open the door which reveals a left hand right angle turn so she can't see anything directly from the outside. Penelope is unsure about whether this is a trap of some sorts.

"You better hurry, she doesn't like waiting." Benjamin urges. This gives Penelope the urge to go inside to the corridor, once she is inside, the door is shut on her. The hallway is empty but full of twists and turns that seem to make it look like a maze, but after the constant lefts and right hairpins, she makes it to the main control centre. A large rectangular room with banks of screens lining the side walls with operators looking at their vision, which looks like helmet cams of some sort. It all seems like a small temporary set up around with all of the bundles of cables that are held together every metre with a cable tie running along the wall under the feet of all these workers. The room looks like some sort of small converted carpark with the concrete pillars running along the centre, holding up the several metres of earth and building above. Even the white lines for each of the spots are still visible, used now to designate each workstation. Like before, all of the operators at their screens are oblivious to her. A long black carpet bisects the room to the other end, running in between the row of concrete pillars. Penelope walks along it to the other side of the room to the room on the other side, which has no label on the front designating what is on the other side. She opens it and sees nothing inside before she collapses to the ground, unable to move.

**An unknown period of time later. **

Penelope wakes up sitting upright in a wooden chair facing a cat whose green eyes are the only light thing on her with her jet-black fur and black clothing.

"Your name is?" She asks to the mouse.

"Penelope." She obediently replies, no tiredness affects her.

"Skills?"

"Mechanic, pilot, computer programmer." She replies.

"My name is?" She asks.

"Bethany." Penelope replies.

"Thomas Fradel is?"

"a puppet." Penelope replies.

"Who really runs this organization?"

"You."

"Test complete. Mode 1 activate." She commands. Nothing changes on the outside; it's meant to be like that, as natural as possible.

"Where am I?" Penelope asks, suddenly thinking about where she is.

"Where is not important, it's what you will do next that is." She replies.

"Why?" Penelope asks.

"Our most lucrative client has specifically asked for your services and for the right price, 75 million euros to be exact, it's your job to do whatever he says until the job is done; understand?"

"Yes." Penelope replies. She can't say no, it's physiologically impossible.

"Good, There is a gallery opening in Paris in two nights time, you need to go there and meet with the owner this afternoon. We'll give you anything you need to get there and back if need be." The cat instructs.

"I'll go now." Penelope says, getting out of the chair to leave.

"Two more things; firstly, your operator will be watching you and give help when necessary, that will be the voice in your head. Secondly, You have affiliations with the Cooper gang, don't you?"

"I do." Penelope replies with hesitation.

"Your secondary objective is to get them all into our operation as well once your assignment is over." Bethany replies.

"Understood." Penelope replies.

"You can leave now." Bethany says as the door opens automatically behind her to show a short and skinny rat with a headset wrapped around his head.

"I'm your operator, Sebastian." He explains to Penelope as she walks out of the office and walks along the slightly raised carpeted platform. "I work down there." Each word comes slightly staggered as she can hear in both from the outside and from the inside.

"Get me transport to Paris." Penelope commands to the rat.

"Okay." He says as he steps down from the platform and towards his computer setup which consists of 3 monitors giving the exact vision and sight that Penelope can see with her own eyes. This is due to a connection to the optic nerve that turns the brain signals into a digital signal that can be transmitted. It's not the only thing that was implanted on the mouse whilst she wasn't awake. It's part of a whole system of augmentations applied to her and all of the people inside this building except for two. The main feature is a tiny circuit board that subtly manipulates key thoughts, only altering a tiny fraction of the person to create a mind control system that is unable to be detected from their mannerisms. It only designates a few rules and loyalties to understand like Bethany is the leader and everything she says must be followed, that Thomas Fradel must not know what's happening down here and that they must not deviate from their tasks. The problem with most mind control systems is that they try to control the whole individual, the biggest strength of this system is that it doesn't. These two systems are connected to a transmitter at the back of the skull whilst a third measures vitals that are displayed on the operator's screen. This operation has been performed so many times they've shortened the process down to 2 hours.

Penelope knows all of this, it's part of the system. But she doesn't have a problem with it, in fact she likes it; but that is also part of how it works. Also included with the package is some key background knowledge. For example, Penelope knows that Bethany Fradel, the daughter of Thomas, set up this operation in 2008 in her early 20's as the credit crunch hit hard for the bank that her father worked for. Naturally, he wanted her to succeed at some point but banking and finance was never her forte. She knew how it worked but it never interested her apart from the money side of it; seeing bundles of money come in via briefcases, paper bags or even under people's hats was a sight to behold. When the recession hit hard, no one wanted to get a loan, clients became scared and withdrew all their money in fear of what may happen to it if the bank collapsed. With a loan of her own at a zero interest rate, she set about changing the fortune of the bank by investing in a different kind of loan system. Instead of cash loans, they would loan people.

With the help of a few scientists and programmers, they figured out how to keep the people that she hired to work in this new scheme from running by subverting their negative desires to run and instead made them feel good about themselves. Even in hard times, the black market never seemed to be affected and via some of the banks more secretive customers, this service began to flourish right under the nose of her dad. Most people volunteered but a few were captured due to a specific client wanting their particular services like Penelope. Thomas never wondered about what was actually happening down there, all he knows is that it brought in a fresh revenue stream that probably saved the bank from going under so he doesn't really mind about what's happening as long as the money keeps coming.


	3. Levels of Control

**Chapter 3 – Levels of Control**

**Paris, France. 12:34pm 26****th**** March 2013.**

The large gated museum was before her in the afternoon sun, it's high limestone pillars with wrought iron fences along all sides protecting the building and it's lush gardens. Two security cameras on either side of the gate look at Penelope before the gate opens automatically for her to get through, it's closed before anyone else can enter. From the sign on the front, it's supposed to open in two days time. Penelope walks along the fine tan gravel pathway flanked by perfectly manicured lawns. She reaches the entrance which is covered by two white sheets on the inside to prevent people from peering in and seeing the artworks soon to be on display. The door is opened for her by one of the workers and shows the interior which is in the process of being set up for a welcome party with a long array of fold out tables stacked on top of each other next to the wall.

Leaning back on the reception desk is a well-groomed skunk with slicked back white hair and a perfectly symmetrical thin white moustache with a curl at the end that could only be done with copious amounts of gel. He wears a green high neck long sleeve top with a red scarf around his neck and a darkish green onesie with a thin yellow strip on the sleeve and on the front. The skunk gives a slight grin as Penelope walks through the door, happy that his considerable investment has arrived.

"Welcome ma Cherie, I am Cyrille Le Paradox." He greeted the mouse with a heavy French accent. The skunk gently takes her hand and lightly kisses it to make is welcome. Penelope doesn't reject it, it's her job to fulfill his desires as long as he pays.

"And hello to you." Penelope greets back. Le Paradox is sold already.

"Penelope, let me ask you." The skunk asks as he takes her around the reception desk with one hand behind her back. "Do you have any motivation other than the chip in your head?"

"Should I?" Penelope asks. Le Paradox is even more pleased at his investment.

"I can't believe it, I say jump you say, how high?" Le Paradox mutters to himself, before turning his attention to the mouse. "Well, you don't have to but it would be better if you had some motivation other than the device inside your head. It would make it less likely that they can trace you back to Madam Fradel, and I don't want that to happen."

Penelope makes a mental note of this.

"So, first I need you to build me a time machine and then attach it to my blimp before this place opens. Because someone's going to rob this place after it's opening and the plan must be in motion before then. So, you can have anything you need to do this and when you are done, report back to me." Le Paradox explains.

"It might be possible if you have enough people and parts." Penelope says.

"Wonderful, tell me what you need and I'll have it ready whenever you want." Le Paradox gleefully says. Penelope feels that this is her chance to build an improved version of the time machine that Bentley and her worked on, the mind control didn't take away if none at all of her previous desires but added stronger ones.

"Memory boards, liquid nitrogen, stainless steel, carbon-14…" Penelope begins to list off the top of her head, but Le Paradox stops her.

"Okay okay, you've made your point. I'll send 200 of my most capable henchmen to help you with your task. They might not be as smart as you but they'll do whatever you say." Le Paradox explains. "Go to la foret near Poissy, that's where I've hidden the blimp, a marvelous creation I must admit, a work of art fit for this very museum." Le Paradox explains. "They will be waiting for you."

Penelope walks away from the skunk and heads back to the entrance to find a taxi.

"You can take the helicopter on the roof." Le Paradox says just before Penelope reaches out to the door handle to open the front door. Penelope simply turns around and walks down the main hallway in to the nearest set of stairs. Le paradox watches on, thinking of how this plan that has been in the works for the last year is so close to completion with this final piece of the puzzle on her way to allow the entire operation to function.

**12:16pm. **

Penelope flies the small but luxuriously appointed helicopter over the town of Poissy next to the Seine, looking for where the blimp is. All she can see is forest with tiny paths criss crossing their way in angular paths.

"Would you like some help?" Sebastian asks as the small voice inside her head.

"Sure, he never said exactly where the blimp would be." Penelope replies.

"Okay, I have done a deep satellite scan of the area and it appears that it's located underneath a small clearing inside the forest, by small I mean it's the biggest clearance there is, the blimp is huge and oddly shaped, not at all aerodynamic." Sebastian explains.

"This clearing." Penelope says as she looks at what she thinks is what Sebastian was alluding to.

"That's it." Sebastian says.

"Roger that" Penelope replied as she began to land the helicopter. She had no worries about the fact that someone was watching her every move; in fact, it had the opposite effect on her. It made her feel calmer and more assured that if she got into trouble, there would be someone always ready to help out. As the helicopter got closer to the ground, a rat came out from somewhere and started to wave two red paddles to signal her landing, not that she need help at finding her spot. When the helicopter touched down, the rat went over to a patch on the ground and retracted a camouflaged handle that he pulled up to reveal an entrance to the underground lair. She leaves the helicopter where she landed it and walks over to the open hatch the rat is standing next to. They are certainly making her feel like she is a guest of honour at this place. She grasps and bent re-bar rungs that are fixed into the concrete shaft. She descends about 10 metre before reaching a gantry that ran along the side of the huge hanger, the rat came down after her to shut the hatch.

What she sees is a huge airship with the envelope that holds the air deflated and folded on top of the roof of the cabin, which is much larger than any other blimp that she had seen before relative to the envelope above it. It was like three hot air balloons had their balloons chopped off and added to the top. In her mind, there was no way it could take off without some highly compressed helium inside. Even the fins looked old fashioned, modeled on Da Vinci's flying machine, Penelope instantly thought that it would not just be the time machine she'd have to build in two days. When she entered, the rats down below standing in precise formations of 10 by 10 in two groups below her, almost 50 metres below her, staring intently, waiting for instruction. But Penelope is more concerned with a pressing issue. She turns back to the rat that let her in.

"How do I get down?" She asks. The rat points along the gantry to the elevator at the end that is faintly visible in this dimly lit part of the underground hanger.

"Thanks." She replies as she walks towards it with the rat following her from behind. The mouse gets in and the rat presses the button, he's acting somewhat like her personal butler. When the elevator reaches the ground floor, the size of the blimp becomes even more massive but the workforce she has control over has not moved at all from their position.

"Um, come here!" She shouts across the room, the rat next to her make a gesture to do the same and they all rush over to where she is standing and form a semi circle around her as they wait for instructions.

"Do you have any parts?" Penelope asks, becoming a bit stressed that she won't make her temporary employers deadline. A rat comes out from the pack and hands he a clipboard with an inventory list on it. It has everything she needed on it, and everything she wanted as well.

"Good. So." Penelope begins as she address her workforce. "5 teams of forty. Team one will assemble all the memory boards and processors into a functioning computer." As she finishes this instruction, forty rats break off from the group and run to where they must store the inventory to carry out this task. Penelope pauses as to whether they even know how to assemble a supercomputer from scratch, but she thinks that she should get everyone working first.

"Team 2 will assemble scanners, team 3 will connect the power supply to the time machine, team 4 will maintain the blimp and the rest will come with me." Penelope instructs. The hanger becomes a frenzy as everyone rushes to their workstations. The last 41 rats follow Penelope aboard the blimp to inspect the facilities already on board. She finds the nuclear power supply, the banks of computers and the flight deck and finds them all satisfactory; not ideal but satisfactory.

"Now, Someone get me some carbon-14." Penelope instructs and a runner instantly takes off to fulfill this task. She looks outside through one of the windows and sees all of the rats at work, making progress and actually building all of the required items she needed; something that she is distinctly surprised about. Perhaps the skunk was right when he said they'd do anything she'd say. One minute later, a small metal box with a large font reading 'Carbon-14' on the top is presented to her. The rat also passes a Geiger counter to her as this isotope of carbon is radioactive.

"Please, we're next to a nuclear reactor, this stuff won't change it at all." Penelope says as she inspects the black powder inside. It looks no different to normal carbon but she just wanted to check that there was something actually inside the box.

"Perfect, now get me a 3D printer, some silicon and a computer." She instructs and two of them rush off to fulfill this instruction. She wonders what she should do with the remaining 38 still with her.

"Everyone go help out your, work colleagues." She says, hoping that's the right way to address them. "Except for you." She says as she looks at this rat that seems to follow her around. "You can help me out on this project."

The hours roll by as this army of workers work on without breaks or stopping until the sun goes down, a fact they only know about due to a small camera nestled in a tree to watch the hatch. At this point, more progress had been made that she could think possible. The computer was half complete, 3 large boxes filled with processors and memory boards are waiting to be connected with a 4th in progress. About 500 scanners had been made already, Penelope didn't even know what do with them all, her instructions weren't that precise so they just kept on making them ad infinitum. All the cables are ready to be connected, laid out in precise spots ready for connection. Penelope's contribution, well, that's probably the most novel out of all of these high tech gizmo's. She programmed the computer that runs the printer to make tiny circular disks, containing mostly Carbon 14 but a precise quantity of silicon to fill it out. The ratio is important, as that's what determines the time they travel to, which is based on the half life of the Carbon-14. She made the interface much easier for Le Paradox, assuming that he had no quantum scientific knowledge. All it requires is a date and time to be selected, the place is what she's figuring out right now, as it requires a precise calculation of the earths position at a given time, a few millions of a second off and it would mean that they'd end up several kilometers in the air or underground. For that, she has broken into the labs secure computers and secretly and remotely downloading all of the calculations from right under Bentley's nose. It would take all night before that will finish so she decides to take a break, along with the rest of the workforce. But as she is about to step off the blimp, a rat dashes in with an old fashioned telephone. He passes the wired receiver to Penelope and holds the main body in his hands with a 150 metre long cable linking it back to the main office.

"Hello?" Penelope answers.

"How is my little project going?" Le Paradox asks as he sits in his Chesterfield backed armchair next to a roaring fireplace in a room that resembles the library of a French Chateau.

"It's going according to plan." Penelope answers.

"Excellent, How's your motivation going?" Le Paradox asks, Penelope is caught out by this comment.

"Motivation, well, I haven't thought about it much." Penelope answers.

"How about I, help you along, get the ball rolling so to speak." Le Paradox offers.

"Okay." Penelope answers

"Tell me about this time machine you're building, nothing too technical, just pretend I have no knowledge of how it works." Le paradox insists.

"Okay, well you just select the time, date and place you want and it should take you there." Penelope answers. Le Paradox is surprised at the succinct nature of the answer, he was hoping for even a crumb of specific details; something that could interest him.

"It's really that simple?" Le Paradox asks in surprise.

"Yeah, well it wasn't as good before." Penelope replies.

"In what way?" Le paradox asks. Penelope feels slightly reluctant to give a simple answer.

"The previous one I was building with, with my, partner, needed an object from the time period you wanted to travel to. I implemented a system that bypasses that need and therefore it can go whenever you want." Penelope replies.

"Tell me Penelope, have you taken a tour of the art room on the middle deck of the blimp?" Le Paradox asks.

"It's quite a collection." Penelope answers.

"Your improvement has made it useless." Le Paradox flatly explains. "Well except for the fact I can look at it and wonder at their unique qualities." Penelope is about to ask how he knows about her plans but she connects the dots herself.

"You knew about the time machine I was building?" Penelope asks.

"Why do you think I hired you in the first place?" Le Paradox asks.

"Because you wanted to figure out a way to beat Sly Cooper." Penelope answers. She's not the only who has done their homework, or more precisely, the voice in her head.

"Ah, so you know of my plans for the raccoon." Le Paradox says.

"I know that because of Sly's dad, your dad went to prison and that's probably your motive for this whole operation, revenge." Penelope answers as the voice speaks.

"Best served cold, it's not the only reason but anyway, back to the time machine. Here's your motivation; you're angry that he isn't as smart as you and that his potential is being blocked by that foul creature. You built that improvement and he wasn't smart enough to think of it, there, go with that." Le Paradox suggests. Inside Penelope's brain, two instructions become conflicted and begin to merge together to expand on the original idea. Due to the needs created by the chip, Le Paradoxes idea has already been set in her brain but there is something that is also attaching itself; the need to get him in the program. Thoughts of money melt in with this idea of Bentley's perceived hinderance; money from contacts, contracts from Bethany. But she won't use her name or mention the program at all, it's the number one need. So the next logical place one of such intelligence could get money from contracts is the military.

And just like that; the seed is planted, inception is created.

"Speak." The voice says to her, she slipped into a trance as she began to self incept this idea.

"Are you there?" Le Paradox asks.

"I'm here." Penelope says, getting her attention back onto the phone.

"Just have everything ready by tomorrow night, 7pm sharp I want to leave." Le Paradox insists. "Goodnight."

The phone goes dead and Penelope replaces the receiver back before the rat begins the task of winding up the long phone cable back to the wall socket it's plugged in. It seems Le Paradox has a penchant for the old fashioned. They continue to work on into the night as the fridge sized units filled with processors grow in numbers. When that number reaches 7 at about 8pm, they load them up into the blimp and connect them to the power supply off to one side of the blimp. Liquid nitrogen pipes are then set up around these units to keep them cool so they don't overheat and melt. It's then that the more specialized parts can be fitted to turn this from a super computer into a time machine. Gravity encabulators, quantum tunnelers, Higgs displacers and the hundreds cell scanners are attached to the blimp to scan the entirety of it's contents. Penelope is unsure whether the computing power they have is enough to scan everything inside, so she rallies everyone to make more processing units and they start coming out like a well oiled assembly line. The rats don't look tired, but then again Penelope can't tell if they actually are or are just hiding it from her so they don't displease her. Another 7 are finished before the day is done and a re fitted into place shortly after, meaning they all go to sleep underneath suburban Paris at 12:30am.

* * *

**(28th January 2014) : In other news, A Sly Cooper movie has been announced for 2015/16. A full analysis of this news can be found on my profile.**


	4. Rude Awakening

**Chapter 4 – Rude Awakening**

**7:00am, 27****th**** March 2013. Underground Poissy, France.**

"Wake up." The voice whispers to her. Penelope slowly opens her eyes and sees two rats right in front of her inside one of few single bedrooms inside the massive blimp, Le Paradoxes to be precise, one holding a ringing telephone and another holding a very long just behind him.

"Why now?" Penelope wonders out loud as she drowsily picks up the phone.

"Hello?"

"Penelope, I just had a thought. Can you build me something that we can I to communicate between me and my other associates if were perhaps, separated by time?" Le Paradox asks as he sips a tiny cup of espresso whilst looking out of a window from the art gallery in the morning wearing the finest cotton and silk lined dressing down. Watching for the last time, hopefully, the city of Paris as it stands today.

"I, I haven't tried anything like that yet, theoretically…" Penelope tries to explain, but le Paradox has already been sold on his ideas feasibility.

"Perfect, and also you probably want to build something to, let's say, help you in a fight." Le Paradox asks.

"A gun? A fighter jet? What do you mean?" Penelope asks.

"I can't talk of the plans on the phone, but what I am doing is sending my 4 main associates to get some things from the on board art collection and also so they can inspect the time machine, they will be the one's to use it." Le Paradox explains. "So you'll see them in one hour and then you will see me in 5 hours, understand?"

"Yes." Penelope replies, then the phone goes dead. Already she knows it's going to be a long day.

"Here are the names of his 4 lieutenants: Marcos 'El Jefe' Navarro, mercenary commander; Viktor 'Toothpick' Makayevic, Eastern European mobster; Samuel 'The Grizz' King; one time artist turned art criminal and Juliette Decibel, it's an unusual one." Sebastian explains in her ear. Penelope has already gotten changed whilst he explained this.

"They don't sound that bad." Penelope replies.

"I guess compared to the people you faced at ACES, they're like kittens without claws." Sebastian remarks.

"So you know everything about me then?" Penelope asks as she peers out in the distance to the concrete floor and the rats who are all wondering around aimlessly without instruction, without any sort of need other than to serve their master.

"It's what my job is." Sebastian replies. Penelope walks out of the blimp and down to the bottom to address the masses.

"Okay, people are coming soon and I need a mobile phone." Penelope announces. 30 seconds later, a rat comes out with one, an old 1980's boxy and large phone with an antenna that's thicker than current mobile phones.

"Seriously?" She asks herself. Her client has all of the money he could need and yet uses things like this, he's certainly stuck in the olden days, perhaps that's why he wants a time machine as he doesn't belong in this time. An uncommon case of being born too late instead of early.

"Okay, get me some parts." She instructs and they all race of getting parts of all descriptions, 90% of them being not at all what she needs.

"To make a telephone call through time." Penelope completes to make her request more accurate. Even through the forced understanding look on their faces, she knows that they have no clue as to what to get.

"Just show me where everything is kept." Penelope says and like that, the group of rats part for her, making a direct path to a storeroom of industrial shelves that have everything labeled in small plastic boxes. Larger parts like blocks of solid steel sit in the back, waiting to be carved down or melted into something else. She wonders how they managed to smuggle all of these things inside here without being noticed, but realizes it's not her concern to know. She picks out a handful of parts and takes a few tools as well and carries them herself up to the blimp with the group of rats still waiting for instructions.

She has only 53 minutes to figure out how to do this, it seems too difficult to do on the face of it. Tethering the call at the quantum level could work as long as it's attached to the same signature left by the blimp. It's the only immediate thought she has at the moment so she starts to pursue it by taking away almost all of the internal electronics and replacing them with a small computer that constantly checks on the time-space position of the blimp so it can tunnel through a communication to the blimp via the same path it took to reach a particular time. As she works on this, rats wait patiently outside like robots, with none of them becoming restless. She knows that they must have some sort of system like she does, unless they have been psychologically conditioned very effectively, except it restricts all behaviors apart from those commanded by their leaders.

With 7 minutes left to spare, she finishes her creation without any knowledge of whether it works or not. It's impossible to figure it out without doing a field test, and she hasn't even tried time travel itself yet. She does a test call to the blimp just to see if it works and sure enough two rats emerge with a phone ready to answer.

"I called it, you can put it back." Penelope insists and they scurry off to do as she tells them. Just then, a thunk of heavy steel echoes inside the huge chamber along with the sound of heavy footsteps along the metal gantry. An intruder? There would have been some volleys of projectiles to stop it, so it has to be one of the four. Penelope tries to look for them out the window, but it only allows her to view a small portion of the gantry close to the hatch and not the part near the elevator where they must be by now. She waits for a noise from them while she holds the phone in her hand.

"What's up my homies?" He shouts from downstairs, referring to the stationary rats.

"That's The Grizz." The voice tells Penelope.

"Now, Where is this time machine?" He asks out loud.

"It's in here." Penelope shouts from several levels up through an open window.

"So you're the 75 million euro mouse?" The bear asks. "This time machine better be grouse."

The bear gets into the blimp and sees the banks of computers lined up and looks instantly convinced.

"You sure it works?" The Grizz asks.

"Nope." Penelope replies calmly.

"Boss won't be happy that this time machine's crappy."

"I know it works." Penelope corrects him.

"Oh, so you're one of 'those' types. I'm just gonna relieve you of that." The Grizz says as he takes the phone from Penelope's skinny fingers. Physically, she is no match for this brute of a beast and can't take it back from him even if she tried.

"I'm going to the art room before we disappear like boom." He says as he goes downstairs. Penelope already despises him, he represents all that is the opposite of her; brash; dumb; careless… the list goes on. She thinks about running so she can find another phone to modify so she can give one to the skunk. But the bear comes back with one glaring new accessory.

"Like it? Every King needs a crown." The Grizz says, now sporting a jewelled crown from medieval England.

"Very funny." Penelope sarcastically remarks, disappointed at the poor quality of this particular hiring.

"There's no reason to not get down to this look, I mean when you…" The Grizz tries to explain, but Penelope begins a tirade to shut his mouth.

"You know, I could erase you from history, from ever existing, and it could be done easily, so you better shut your mouth from making a single rhyme in front of me, got it?!" She shouts up at him.

"Okay fine, I won't rhyme." The Grizz apologizes.

"You're so lucky right then." Penelope exclaims.

"A'ight I'll go, I'll go." The Grizz says, hurrying to get off the blimp and out of her way as soon as possible. The thunk of the steel hatch stops the Grizz from going out and instead he looks to the hatch for who is entering. It's not just a single set of foot steps this time, but Penelope can't accurately figure how many there are, they all sound like a cacophony of thumps to her. The bear finally exits out of the blimp but Penelope is also curious as to who is here but she can't see who it is from her position again. They are all more than 3 minutes early she realizes as she check the clock attached to the time machine. She knows that that clock is perfectly accurate down to a quadrillionth of a second, but then again, no one has that kind of punctuation in being exactly on time.

She tries to tinker with the time machine in order to pass the time, adjusting tiny parts to optimize efficiency. But that is stopped when the four come in to look at the sprawling machinery on board.

"So these boxes are going to take us to where need to go?" El Jefe asks.

"They are not boxes, they are supercomputers." Penelope corrects fearlessly.

"Does it work?" Toothpick asks.

"I don't know. Do you want it to work?" Penelope asks rhetorically.

"Why should I trust my precious life in this horrendously cobbled together machinery?" Decibel asks in disgust.

"Why do you have a trumpet shoved up your trunk?" Penelope counters. Immediately, it angers the elephant. She blows hard through the trunk, sending a dischordious harmony towards Penelope, hoping to shut her up. All Penelope hears is a weird sounding noise being constantly blown, it's not off tune but yet is.

"Can you turn that off?" Penelope asks.

"You're not hypnotized." Toothpick realizes.

"Should I be?" Penelope asks, unsure what they mean.

"You're one of Bethany's agents, aren't you?" Decibel asks.

"Am I?" Penelope says, playing dumb to conceal that fact.

"It's the only explanation to this anomaly. The only one's who can't be hypnotized are those who have perfect pitch, or are already under hypnosis or mind control. And I'm certain you have nowhere near perfect pitch." Decibel Explains, annoyed with this outcome.

"Okay, you got me." Penelope jokes. "So, what are you all doing here?"

"They, are getting their equipment for their missions." Le Paradox answers from behind, having gotten on the blimp without so much as a whisper. Penelope is surprised that he's here, this conversation hasn't lasted for 4 hours, let alone 4 minutes.

"Le Paradox?" Penelope says, confused.

"Everything's being moved ahead, we leave as soon as we can." Le Paradox explains as they brush aside for him to walk up to Penelope.

"Okay then." Penelope responds.

"Splendid, okay. Get the things that I told you about, I see Sam as already got his item." Le Paradox says, wondering about his poor fashion sense. Too much bling for his liking.

"What about me?" Penelope asks.

"You don't need one, it's all part of the plan." Le Paradox says. "First stop, 10000B.C., The Ice Age."

"When do you want to leave?" Penelope asks.

"When all of my servants are on board, we'll need everyone one of them to accomplish my goals. Wealth, Power, Prestige."

"Okay." Penelope replies.

"What? You don't even have a tiny bit of curiosity as to what each of them mean? I know are under control, but surely you have some desire to know what's going on." Le Paradox asks as he comes in close, very close to her ear, only centimetres away as he goes into a whisper. He breaks away to tell them all his plan.

"Wealth; Forge art in prehistoric times, return to the present, find them sell them and make money. Power; Forge royal documents to give me a royal lineage, return to the present, own all of the world, Europe at least." Le Paradox explains.

"And prestige?" Penelope asks.

"Did I even say that out loud? Must be your circuits frying up." Le Paradox says, trying to cover it up, prestige is a personal goal, it's the one he would like more than the other two, they are just bonuses, secondary objectives.

"He did say…" The Grizz says but Le Paradox gives him the look, the look that tells him to shut up and agree with him. "…didn't say anything other than wealth and power."

Le Paradoxes angry face turns back to the normal lethargic and tired look.

"Excellent, so, I want final preparations done as soon as possible." Le Paradox says as he wonders as he wanders off into his spacious living quarters.

"Who has been sleeping in my bed?!" Le Paradox shouts back.


	5. A Quantum Leap

**Chapter 5 – A Quantum Leap**

**The Blimp, Poissy, France. 11:34am, 27****th**** March 2013.**

Everything they need is on board; all of the parts from the storeroom have been loaded into the lower decks of the blimp, all of Le Paradoxes henchmen which number just shy of one thousand are ready to go and help their master and all of the materials that they need to survive in their respective times are supplied. Some need more than others, The Grizz seems to have the most equipment devoted to him; many winter coats and pants, bits of heavy machinery and parts as well as a sizable chunk of the henchmen. But he also has the task of completing the money side of the skunks plan. Ms. Decibel has slightly less muscle but more resources because, as well as completing the Power part of the equation, Le Paradox decided that they would be slightly harder to find if they were based in another time altogether. When Penelope heard this, inside she thought that it would be a logistical nightmare but she would never question her boss, not while the chip is active.

The three remaining mini bosses including herself must be working on prestige they think, although they had no clue what it is except for Penelope thanks to the voice.

"Let's go everyone. World domination waits for no one." Le Paradox announces as all of the rats go scrambling to their stations, wearing their customary gas proof suits and gas masks with semi automatic stink bomb launchers. Le Paradox sits at the helm, controlling the blimp he has seen start from the ground and turn into this marvelous creation.

"Open the main doors." Le Paradox announces via an intercom. It takes a few seconds for the massive thick doors to move as they creak under all of the weight of the soil and earth above, they haven't been used at all until now, this is their moment to work. The process is a slow one, Le Paradox can see a huge tract of land opening up from the security camera above ground, right in the middle of some trees. No one, unless they are in the air, will see it until the blimp rises into the air above the tree line.

It takes a painstaking 10 minutes to open the doors fully and let some natural sunshine hit the concrete for the first time.

"Inflate the balloons." The skunk instructs. The three comparatively small balloons start to rise off the top of the blimp and increasingly begin the monumental task off lifting the hundreds of tonnes inside the blimp. Penelope thinks it can't be possible unless they are inflated to over 30,000bar each, which is impossible considering their material. So there has to be another place they are funneling helium into, a much stronger place. When Penelope looks over the shoulder of Le Paradox to see all of the dials at the front, one shows the pressure inside the entire roof of the blimp. The huge surface area of the roof should contain a large quantity of helium and it makes her feel more relaxed, knowing that someone has actual given some practical thought into building this blimp and not handed the plans to a surreal artist. Although the action it's soon to do is going to melt some figurative clocks, except for the atomic clock controlling the time machine.

"Pressure has been reached, prepare for takeoff." A computerized voice warns the occupants as they suddenly feel slightly heavier as the blimp moves off it's supports and takes it's own weight. The concrete walls move slowly downwards at a rate of about 1 metre per second as they navigate their way directly upward. Le Paradox likes to think he's a skilled pilot in operating this maneuver, but it's all the work of an autopilot and Penelope knows it. Finally, she sees the first sunlight in almost a day as she peers up and sees the morning sun streak in through the trees. The blimp rises ever higher, people on the nearby motorway and riding on boats along the Seine stop in their tracks as they see the cruise ship like size of the airship ascend above the trees, dwarfing everything around it. The blimp has to rise up even further to clear the trees and other buildings in it's path, which means on lookers get to see the entire hull of the airship. Social media has already been taken over with photos and comments of aliens flooding every last byte of bandwidth.

"200 metres." The computer voice says, meaning they have reached a sufficient altitude to get away.

"Get the time machine ready." Le Paradox instructs to Penelope.

"To which time?" Penelope asks. Le Paradox takes out a folded list from inside his pocket, he passes this to Penelope.

"These times in order. 10000BC first." Le Paradox instructs.

"Warning; missile lock, warning; missile lock." The computer voice warns as three fighter jets appear in the bottom right hand corner approaching quickly.

"State your intentions or we'll shoot you down!" A radio communication shouts from one of the fighter jets.

"Is the time machine ready?" Le Paradox shouts to behind his chair.

"It's ready." Penelope replies.

"Last warning!" The fighter pilot shouts, giving an ultimatum.

"Punch it!" Le Paradox shouts as he braces himself for whatever happens next.

As the time machine turns on, the world seems to warp around the bubble window of the cockpit yet only for a brief second. They feel no g force that would probably render them all unconscious due to the instant acceleration up to light speed as they are almost fully detached from the Higgs field, making the blimp near massless, it's set up so that they experience only a tiny fraction of the force, equivalent to about 1.5 g's. The world that they saw before now turns into an acid trip like array of pearlescent colours that line a cylindrical pipe like structure that they travel through.

"It worked?" Le Paradox says to himself in shock that he wasn't killed along with everyone else on board. He didn't doubt his acquisitions engineering talents, but the very concept of time travel actually working? They have become part of history, which he hopes to rewrite. Penelope is also joyous that it worked like it did, having been build over a period of days instead of years is a logistical dream that no one could dream to accomplish. But the mouse is also cautious, checking every system to make sure they are not melting down or failing as they travel through, whatever this place is in the time space continuum. They twist their way though this tunnel uncontrollably almost, the autopilot doesn't know what to do as they are carried though the pipe. It takes exactly 24.6 mind bendingly long and frightening seconds for them to re-emerge in a frozen wasteland that is the ice age, traveling at the paltry speed of a few metres per second in the frigid air to the chorus of cautious celebration from all on board except the skunk at the helm, who knows this is only the beginning.


	6. The Present

**Chapter 6 – The Present**

**Poissy, France. 8:09am, 27****th**** March 2013.**

The squadron pilot leader quickly aborts his two air-to-air missiles that have accelerated away from the undersides of his wings. They explode, as they were intended to, sending the shells of the missiles flying into the river, narrowly missing the barges and ferries that have crowded around the area. The jets fly over the forest and spot the massive gapping hole inside as they bank right to return to base. It has become the only thing on the news, the only thing worldwide that anyone will talk about, everyone with their own theories as to what this is.

One with more knowledge about this is Bentley; who, grief stricken that his love had simply walked away and had not come back, watched a broadcast as Thiefnet exploded into a frenzy at the event. Some users started querying him for access to his technology, as they know he is one of the smartest in the business and also because the rumours that he was developing one were circulating at a steady pace. He didn't know what to make of it, Penelope couldn't have built one in that short space of time he knows. The machine they built has been carefully crafted over years of modifications so even if she betrayed him, which he vigorously doubts she did, they couldn't have built in less than 2 days. He wonders where this particular time machine had gone, what purpose it has, and who built it. He doesn't know of anyone else who has the technology or parts to build one, but their would be every chance that someone with more resources and people like a government research and development program would be working on the same things he works on in a technological arms race. It's not his primary concern though; he wants to find Penelope first and foremost, ahead of any attempt to find the origin of this new time machine.

**The Underground Fradel bank.**

Sebastian doesn't know what to make at what he has seen via the monitors on his desk. She pressed a button and then, the vision cut out and his screen went to static, her diagnostics went to zero and now he has the issue of having to confront Bethany with this news. He goes out of his chair whilst all of the other operators, oblivious to everything around them, continue to monitor their agents. Sebastian knocks on the door before the door opens automatically for him.

"Report." Bethany instructs as she puts down a cup of coffee.

"Number 137 is not receiving transmission." He responds.

"Are you sure it's death or have they found out?" She asks, worried that this new asset has been lost.

"I don't know, everything just went off." He tries to explain.

"Tell me what happened just before it went off." Bethany asks as she brings up the vision that was recorded before his monitors went to static.

"She pressed a button on a, um, machine and it all went to static." Sebastian tries to explain. But Bethany is analyzing the frames just before the vision went dead, looking for clues over her own. There's a round red button, about 3cm across with a yellow insert around it and a plastic cover that has been opened to press this particular button. To the left of the button, there are three LCD readouts: One with the current time on top, the second below with a date in 10000BC and the last one blank; all of them set into the sides of a steel sheet that spreads across all of the remaining vision, meaning these are the only clues to see. But still, the termination of transmission violates the terms of contract, as it means either the agent is dead or they have turned off the system.

"Get a repossession team out to his art gallery now. I want all of his art seized." She instructs, angry in that her asset is no more but also the greed in her is rising as all of this art is now going to be hers to sell or store. Sebastian nods before running out of the door and back to his workstation. He brings up the monitors again onto some different subjects, ones that are all sitting in front of computers inside cubicles at the moment. The rats brings up the 'need' command window, a window that can directly incept and idea into their mind. Not everyone has this feature, only the one's working above in the cubicles do, as it means they can work normal lives and be on call whenever they need be, like now. He opens up 5 windows simultaneously and inputs the same command line into all of them.

Above, the same five people rise from their desk, not rigidly or forcedly, but as if they were just going out for a snack, relaxed and unworried. They all go up and at slightly different times, it give the impression that they aren't all working together, but it still means they can take the same elevator down into the parking garage where they all walk quickly to one of the worker's vehicles and get in so they can make the trip to Paris, via a nearby equipment depot where there they store equipment for various tasks that they need to do. They enter the small and neatly organized room 5 minutes later, and take the few items that they need. There are very few actual weapons in this room, the few that they have are all non lethal, Bethany wanted this to be a zero body count business so it would not attract the attention of law enforcement any more than a taxation body to target the bank for tax fraud. All of the guns have rubber bullets, most are small handheld melee weapons like truncheons which they all take along with several large plastic bags to put the art inside to protect it. All of the items are tagged so each one needs to be checked against a system that keeps track of all the stock much like how a library checks his books to prevent theft, even though they wouldn't steal from them.

Once they have what they need, they get away with haste to Paris.

Two hours and twenty-seven minutes later, they arrive on the outskirts of Paris to change vehicles. A sedan was hardly going to fit 5 paintings let alone an entire art gallery. So they arrive at a rental dealer and each go into separate vans, a semi trailer was never going to get anywhere near the centre of Paris. Of course, Sebastian is pulling all of the strings back at base, trying to keep 5 agents all in motion to their task as quickly and efficiently as possible. They pull off in a convoy into a side street that also has a service entry into the gated gallery.

"Art delivery for Cyrille le Paradox." Benjamin says as he turns on the intercom, hoping that they'll let him in. His hopes come true as the ornate gates slowly retract back so they can stop blocking the street. They quickly drive in and park next to each other on the gravel parking lot at the rear of the gallery. There are several rats waiting for them, waiting to unload the art and fix it in place for the grand opening tomorrow. Benjamin gets out first as he lead the convoy in and carries a copy of the contract that Le Paradox signed in order to get Penelope.

"Take me to Cyrille." He asks to the six rats waiting by the service entry. The other four, including Timothy, come to stand by Benjamin to impose themselves. They may be one number down but they all are at least 15 centimeters taller than the tallest rat. The rats stand their ground, unwilling to let them in, knowing that Le Paradox is not here.

"He's not inside." Sebastian tells them. "Take them out and get the art."

His words turn into their actions as they quickly retract their truncheons faster than the rats can get their stink guns from behind their backs, meaning they get the first strike which is a blow in between the neck and shoulder, sending them all unconscious. They may have had no special training, but they do what they are told. They all put back their weapons as Benjamin takes a set of keys from one of the unconscious rats.

"Don't open that door, there are at least 30 rats patrolling that area." Sebastian warns.

"Where do we go?" Benjamin asks.

"To the right of the door, there's a window almost at ground level. Break into that and you'll be in an old cellar, there's no one in there." Sebastian explains.

"Understood." Benjamin replies, everyone else can hear the same thing inside their own heads but Benjamin is the designated leader due to him having the most experience. They quickly go over to their instructed window, Benjamin checks for himself to see if anyone is inside before smashing through the glass window. He slides through feet first and lands on the dust covered concrete floor with the stale odour of wine stains being the most pungent odour in the room. There is one door out this room that is locked, so Benjamin tries to match the key to the lock.

"Once you get out the room, turn left down the hallway and go up the staircase to the ground floor." Sebastian instructs. Benjamin unlocks the door and slowly opens it fully before running quietly over to the limestone staircase that matches the walls.

"There are 6 of them patrolling the main hallway, it contains about 10 percent of his collection. So you need to go up to the higher floors for find where he's put it all. Wait for my go to move up the stairs." Sebastian instructs. From his view, which contains security camera vision, he sees the rats all standing around, spread out in the large open room.

"Go." Sebastian shouts and the group of five rush around the corner to get further up the stairs to the higher levels. They make it up to level two, where most of the art is held. Paintings are hanging one after the other with large sculptures in the middle from various eras in the middle, separating the two sides.

"Every painting has an alarm attached to it, I can only deactivate an alarm for 5 seconds otherwise they'll know we're here." Sebastian explains. "Stand next to the artwork and I'll deactivate it after one second."

Everything has to be done precisely, the alarms refresh themselves every 15 seconds, giving Sebastian 5 seconds to recalibrate the weight attached to the hooks to zero. They start to slowly take off the more manageable paintings and lie them down on the ground until only the very large paintings are left. No rats come past this level; they focus their attention on the entrances and exits on the ground level.

"Move them down to the cellar, we can hold them there as they won't patrol down there." Sebastian explains. They carefully and quietly pick up each artwork, careful to not ruin the painting's condition, and move them two floors down. They continue this procedure on the third floor without a hitch and move on to the forth and highest floor in the building.

"Start wrapping up the other paintings while Benjamin and Timothy take the rest off." Sebastian instructs. The other three delve into a backpack containing nothing but plastic covers to fit the paintings whilst the last few paintings get taken off their hooks. This floor contains mostly rare artifacts, including an extensive collection of sabers and rapiers, with only a few paintings to complement the room. The sun has almost began to peak through the slanted skylight on the roof, it's taken them over two hours to complete this part of the job, right under the their noses. 3 of the group had stayed down stairs so they could wrap each painting the in the plastic they brought in order to protect their integrity. Benjamin and Timothy carry the last two paintings down as quietly as the others, taking the total up to just over 60.

"Give me a boost." Benjamin says as he looks towards the sunlight. Two of them lift him up back to ground level.

"Lift up the paintings and I'll put them in the back." He instructs as the first one is slotted through the window and carried into one of the five vans. The repetition of this action doesn't bore him, each time he does it he feels like he has done another valuable and meaningful service to this organization. When he gets through 10 of them, Timothy gets boosted up in order to expedite the process and get out of there quickly. They take 15 minutes to finish it off and lift the remaining three out of the cellar and into their vans.

"Drive them back to the bank, there is an art dealer who will sell them on for us." Sebastian instructs. The convoy of vans makes it out of the gated gallery, the metal gate opened automatically from the inside, and drive through the traffic of Paris. But it takes less than two minutes before they are swamped upon by police with blaring sirens and flashing lights. The police act aggressively as they point their guns straight at each of the drivers to force them out of their vehicles. Each of them get out willingly and are taken in by the police and the vans seized and returned back to the art gallery in the space of an hour, meaning that all of the paintings will be hung up by evening. So when Le Paradox returns for the opening, it will be as if nothing would have happened.

The fate of the five agents who have been taken into custody is a matter that Bethany knows what to do on her end. They don't disconnect them and hide from their involvement; they are confidant that no one will detect the presence of mind control so they leave it on, and for good reason too. Bethany doesn't want anyone ratting them out this operation. She doesn't know if any of the implanted ideas and needs inside of their minds stick after they get shut off, they have never had that situation happen to them in the first place. All she cares about is how much money she has to pay for their bail, as it impacts on her earnings and the possibility of Thomas deciding to come down here, something she hopes will never happen.


	7. Rapid Raid

**Chapter 7 – Rapid Raid**

**Medieval England. 4:00am, 1301. **

Having spent the morning and a part of the afternoon getting all of the supplies off for The Grizz to set up his prehistoric art scam, and the rest of the day in ancient Arabia to recruit some document forgers, the blimp arrives in Medieval England to get Penelope set up with her slice of the plan. In the pitch black darkness, they have no idea exactly where they are just by looking. However, thanks to modern technology, a night vision camera illustrates to them that they are near to a town with a large castle on a hill that sticks out of the smooth rolling hills. It's Penelope's target location, the place she is going to be stationed at. It's not going to be a walkover, that's why she has been busy on the engineering deck, building robots from the materials they had on board. She has about 40 at the moment, not much but she plans to continue building more once she has control of the town. Also with the extra steel that was left over, she built a suit of armour for herself. However, she isn't strong enough to even wear a normal suit of armour, this suit of armour more resembles a mech in that she doesn't wear it, but controls it.

Le Paradox isn't up at the moment, he's sleeping after the long day he had in watching over the two more tangible aspects of his plan. Everything had gone without a hitch, everything is on schedule. The schedule being key to the entire plan. The precise times that they are in are all set to lead the raccoon on a merry path through time as he comes oh so close each time, inflicting the maximum amount of emotional toll every time. In this case, this is two weeks before the time that Sly Cooper would be sent to if he ever found out about their prehistoric art scam. If he never arrives then Penelope would be picked up from this time and returned to the present, or at least that's what Le Paradox has told her. Therefore, she has two weeks to take of over the town before the moment Sly Cooper arrives. It's not a moment as such, but a range. The carbon dating machine used on the crown is accurate to within a day, so there is a window they have to be on high alert for in case he causes a hindrance in the plan.

In any case, she has to wait for Le Paradox to wake up at his own accord before she goes, she needs to make sure that he knows how to use the time machine properly otherwise he won't get himself or her out of this time. So she continues to prepare her mini army to storm the town at dawn hopefully if Le Paradox is an early riser, the worst time would be when people below have realized that there is a huge three dimensional flying oval in the sky and decide that the best course of action is to attack it. So, with the help of the remaining crew on board or more precisely the work, they build another 20 in the next three hours as the sun begins to creep out from the grassy and tree lined horizon.

To her relief Le Paradox shows himself, still tired though, at 7am to allow her to leave the blimp.

"You can leave now, I'm just going to, to get my self an espresso." Le paradox says, drunken with sleep as he walks back into the same corridor he came out of. The skunk is too eager to get this all done so he can get to the part of the plan that is of the most excitement to him. But there is a nagging feeling in Penelope that tells her Le Paradox isn't fit to control the blimp. So she doesn't leave, instead, she waits for Le Paradox to re emerge so she can explain this to him. He returns five minutes later, seemingly reinvigorated.

"You're still here? I told you to leave." Le Paradox repeats, with no signs of being tired at all. That espresso must have been at least a triple shot. There is a conflict in Penelope's head. On one hand is the need to follow his orders and on the other is seeing the bigger picture and wondering if he can take this airship solo through time.

"Do you know how to operate the time machine?" Penelope asks, for her own self-preservation.

"Yes, yes. I choose the time on the readout then get high enough to clear obstacles and then press the huge big red button that causes everything to become a psychedelic blur. Now if you would please leave the ship, that would be very kind of you." Le Paradox instructs. Despite his hasty explanation, it makes Penelope feel comfortable to leave the airship in Le Paradoxes somewhat capable hands. She gathers her small army and leads them off in her own mechanized suit of armour, heading towards the castle. As she is left with no other living contact as they march on, the blimp begins to rise out into the morning sun and disappear before her eyes as it goes off into another time. All she can think about is how to raid this town, with only 60 military units +1 and the 40 rats behind them to help with various technological projects. It would have been helpful to have Sebastian think of a way and tell it in her ear, but he can't. The communication link can't be made across time. However, it's the first time she has had any thought for someone other than those directly involved with the task at hand, even before Bentley.

Bentley. Suddenly a rush of hate fills her, the earlier planted seed of motivation makes her want to attack, which is the right sort of mood one needs when they need to take over a small village. It's visible to herself inside the body of the mechanized knight, but it's not what she feels. On the inside of those emotions is another layer, the one that the chip suppresses. She loves him, the last eight years have been very productive, but the chip takes that love and buries it down, much like one would try and bury their secrets or horrible, embarrassing moments. It comes up every now and then, much like those embarrassing thoughts, but the chip makes her return to what her needs are. On the outside, she is extremely stable, eager to continue advancing. On the inside, the chip is trying to replicate that stability as best it can.

It takes 30 minutes to march the 2 kilometres towards the foot of the castle, to where they are greeted with the sight of four archers leaning of the parapets of the high stone walls. The rats had been moved into the forest for their protection, Penelope knows that these robot warriors can't build anything. With only a 15 metre wide channel of water separating the two sides, the archers don't feel very safe with their arrows, as they won't make a dent on these unworldly soldiers.

"I demand to talk to your king!" Penelope demands in the deep voice she set the mech to output to make herself sound tougher.

"Lord Hemingsby is not here, go acquaint thyselves with Baron Fotheringham over yonder hill to the east to find our lord!" A messenger shouts from the top of the wall.

"Then you need to decide if this castle needs a leader who can stay in his castle or the gate is coming down." Penelope challenges.

"We can wait this out for longer than you, our harvest is most bountiful." The messenger taunts.

"I don't want a siege, I want a raid, and if you don't lower the drawbridge then you will be dead when I count to five." Penelope retorts.

"Our walls are stronger than your steel!" He taunts again.

"Five!" Penelope announces, going straight to five, giving him no chance to run.

"Stop!" A booming voice shouts from behind. "You give him a scratch and I'll give all of you quick deaths!" Penelope turns around to see who this is, but he is so far back she has to zoom in on the top of his helmet to see the only thing she can see. She can't see the face because this knight is not taller than 2 and a half meters, the height of all of her minions. Outnumbered 61 to one, Penelope thinks this hotshot has overstepped the line between brave and stupid and decides to give a taunt of her own. Except, this taunt isn't in the form of words, but in the form of a thrown sword from one of her minions that has sliced the messenger in half just below the armpits. The sword is heard crashing into one of the stone buildings inside the castle walls as the two half separate away from their view.

"You've asked for it!" He says before commencing the seemingly impossible task of taking on an army by himself.

"Attack!" Penelope instructs. The knight seems to move in a blur as all of the robots surround him and eventually crowd around the battle, as there is no space for them to swing a sword. The ballistics computer inside the mech unit automatically catches an arrow that one of the archers decided to fire, if it didn't get caught, it may even stratch the black paint if it's a really good shot. But instead, the arrow is caught and flung straight back to where it came from, catching a bit of bone and internal organs on the way. Meanwhile, to her surprise, the parts of at least 10 of her minions can be seen around the huddling group of robots waiting to get a crack at this surprisingly successful and skillful knight. She may be slightly worried at his better than expected result, but she watches this battle, waiting for the killer blow to be struck. It doesn't come, she waits and waits for it but parts continue to fly and more robots come in to try the exact same thing. She briefly wonders who could be so powerful and skillful to do this, but he mind is instantly taken to one answer, a Cooper. She doesn't know which one, she never read the heavily guarded relic of Cooper history that sat in it's special pedestal near Bentley's workstation. But whoever it is, they are destroying her minions like they were straw targets.

As the amount of guards begins to dwindle below 30, meaning half of her guards had been defeated, Penelope decides that she needs to step in.

"Enough!" She shouts, stopping all of the guards attacking the Cooper. "You fight me!"

"And to whom do I have the pleasure of defeating this morning?" The Cooper shouts up to the huge suit of armour that looks down to him.

"I am the Black Knight, and who are you?" She asks.

"I am Sir Galleth from the knights of the Cooper Order!" Sir Galleth replies. "Prepare your battleaxe for battle!"

"With pleasure" Penelope replies, readying the huge battleaxe that is as long as Sir Galleth is tall. Sir Galleth draws his own sword with the signature hook at the end, but he knows he won't be able to strike a devastating blow against an opponent of such size and bulk. He puts on his usual aggression and charges quickly towards the Black Knight but Sir Galleth doesn't get to the knights feet as he is tripped up by a huge swing of the bottom of the axe that he tried to dodge. Sir Galleth tries to get back up quickly but he is pinned back by the edge of the axe right next to his neck.

"Do you surrender?" The black knight asks to the trapped raccoon. 

"Never!" Sir Galleth defiantly says as he tries to roll out of the pin, but instead the back of the axe presses harder on his neck to the point he can't breath. The raccoon tries to move himself away but after 10 seconds of frantic movement, he taps the compacted dirt, signaling to the black knight that he has given up. This is the worst day for Sir Galleth, it's his first ever loss in a duel.

"Get up!" The black knight demands as Sir Galleth tries to get his breath back. He slowly gets onto his feet with the realization that he has lost hanging over him, letting down everyone who inhabits this village and especially to the Lord when he returns.

"Who is your Lord?" The black knight asks to the shocked raccoon. He holds his breath, not wanting to admit it openly.

"You say it or you die." She warns. With his defiance drained from him, he feels ashamed at admitting it.

"You are. The, the black knight, is the new lord." He says to Penelope. It would be more embarrassing that he lost to a girl, but he doesn't know that.

"Yes, yes I am." She says, confirming it to herself. "Now seize him."

"Hey let me go!" He shouts to the robotic warriors that pick him up.

"Tell them where your prison is so you can be thrown into it." The black knight demands. "But first, you have to announce my reign to your people."

There could be no more soul destroying thing right now, having to admit defeat to everyone who trusted him to protect the town.

"I already have!" Sir Galleth insists.

"Is this a town of one?" She asks rhetorically. "March into the town and tell them the good news."

"No one is in the town!" Sir Galleth says, trying to explain to her is reasoning.

"You evacuated everyone? I demand that…" The black knight begins to ask.

"Everyone is inside the castle walls!" Sir Galleth finally explains. "They can hear everything!"

"I'm not convinced." She tells him before grabbing him whole with one hand and throwing him on top of the wall, where he lands perfectly without tumbling, right next to the archer that had his bow trained on the intruder for the entire encounter but never fired. Sir Galleth trudges to the opposite parapet, to the few hundred grouped inside the walls for protection. The sight of him being thrown onto the top of the wall shows them how overpowered he was and how futile his efforts were.

"I pronounce from this day forthwith, that Lord Hemingsby is no longer in charge. Our new leader is behind those walls. Lower the drawbridge!" He commands as his last act in his current position. Some of the inhabitants go to either side of the gate and lower it down as fast as possible. To show the huge knight with the remainder of it's posse behind with the extra personnel from behind the trees having reemerged.

"Where is the nearest Iron mine?" Is the black knight's first question to the population.

"Um, Sir." One of the people tries to say.

"I am not Sir. I am the black knight." She says without moving at all.

"Okay." The pig says worriedly, quaking as he stands. "Black knight, We are not miners, we must trade for our steel which was why our Lord." The black knight puts a hand on the sword at this disrespect. "Our previous Lord, is away."

"Send a messenger to Hemingsby. Tell him to get all the steel they have and I'll spare his life. If he doesn't then he will be executed in front of you when he returns. Also tell him to get every labourer or miner as well." She demands. One of the crowd stands up and runs quickly to the stables to get a horse to deliver this message.

"As for the rest of you, I know that there is iron below our feet. All of you that can perform manual labour will walk 2 kilometres east to a cave and dig out the iron in that cave, my assistants will aid this with their own equipment."

"What is this, kilometre?" One of the people asks bravely.

"My apologies, walk 1.247 miles." She corrects as she calculates the exact length from the onboard computer, which had also controlled a sonar scan for iron ore deposits in the area.

"Yards are easier to count." He replies.

"2,187 yards roughly. Everyone go to that mine." She commands as every male gets up and groups together as they begin their journey for iron along with a few of the guards and some of the rats with their advanced technological knowledge for this period.

"I have no use for anyone else who can't work. So find a new town or consider working, I don't want to have to kill innocent children." She orders. That takes care of everyone except for the guards who stand on the inside perimeter of the wall and on top of the wall.

"All guards are now my guards, I want the entire town patrolled day and night in 13 moons time. For now, you join the miners." She instructs. "Except for you Sir Galleth. You will be put into prison until I can think of a more humiliating punishment. Oh, and I want your sword now." She demands. Sir Galleth throws it from the top of the wall onto the dirt floor, making the black knight's metal boots slightly dirty.

"Come down and go into the prison yourself or I'll do it for you." She insists. Sir Galleth does it himself as he jumps from the top of the wall and slides down a flagpole to get to the ground before trudging through the soft semi dry dirt to a small stone building that functions as the prison. He walks inside and shackles himself by the ankle to a chain that's attached to the wall. Penelope peeks through the tiny opening just to make sure. This takeover was easier than she thought, only the Cooper put up resistance, and hopefully the next one won't be any harder.


	8. Contractual Obligations

**Chapter 8 – Contractual Obligations**

**The Underground Fradel Bank, Luxembourg. 2:43pm, 27****th**** March 2013.**

She has the signed contract on her desk, with the signature of Le Paradox on the bottom, clearly stipulating the rules of how this brokerage goes. It is not a very long contract, less than 200 words long, it doesn't need to have all of the complicated words and meaning normal legal contracts do as loaning people isn't exactly legal in itself. It is tight enough to bind the client to the bank in case they need to claim for losses, which is what Bethany is trying to do now. A worried Sebastian sitting opposite thinks it's his fault that this has gone wrong.

"That sneaky…" She mutters in anger, unable to appropriate describe how foul this play is.

"Why do I need to be here?" He asks.

"You, are going to help figure out a way to help me help her since she is your responsibility, understand?" She asks.

"Of course." He replies.

"You know the system better than I do, is there any way you could do it through time?" She asks, such a ridiculous question asks, but she can't refute the pictures she has on her screen.

"I know nothing about time travel, but we could find someone who does." Sebastian postulates.

"I assume you've already done some digging." She wonders.

"Of course." He replies. "I need to use your computer." Bethany only hesitates for a second before letting him type away at the keyboard. Suddenly a weird dark green and black interface comes up on the screen.

"What is this?" She asks.

"Thiefnet, hidden in the darkest corners of the Internet in a place called the darknet." Sebastian explains.

"And what is that?" She asks.

"It's a place where one can only access these websites via a direct IP address instead of a name. But this one is heavily secure so I had to get a profile from somewhere otherwise the entire network would be spiked." Sebastian explains.

"Spiked?" She asks.

"Destroyed, unusable." He answers.

"Remotely?" She asks.

"Yes, but I managed to create my own profile by pretending I am a computer hacker." Sebastian explains.

"You didn't compromise the network did you?" She asks, worried that he has just let potential thieves into her network.

"Go check your latest bank statement." He asks. "You will find your bank account has increased by $1000."

She does this and indeed finds it so.

"But that's nothing." She replies. "What does this prove? How does this help?"

"That's only half of the payment I received for doing an initiation test which turned out to be a real hack on a pharmaceuticals company, the other $1000 was spent on getting some information that you might like to hear." Sebastian explains.

"I'm listening." She says, still curious to hear of everything he's done to help her. It's moments like this that she loves this system she has in place.

"Apart from me saving 10 people by getting their AIDS medication where they couldn't, that the lab that we got her from is empty, right now." Sebastian explains. "This lab, probably has the same time machine that was used on that blimp." Sebastian explains.

"You plan on using the time machine?" She asks.

"It depends on what you want to do: we can try and shut her down, we could try and program her to come back." He offers.

"Programming her won't work." She corrects. "She's not like the others."

"When you say it won't work, it just means that it's more difficult." He explains. It's moments like this when she doesn't like having the system in place.

"Remind me to program your initiative out unless you get her back safely before the gallery opening tomorrow night." She orders.

"Why that time?" He asks.

"Otherwise we are going to take some of his art, like you failed to get them to do, which is clearly written in this contract." She schemes as she shows him the contract, getting more devious with every second.

"I don't think doing it on that night is a good idea." He worries, remembering something he heard when he still had a connection to Penelope.

"And why not?" She asks.

"Because, someone else is going to be taking it." He explains, this comes as a surprise to Bethany.

"You know this for sure?" She asks.

"I'm not 100% positive, but it's very likely." He explains.

"Pass me that phone." She asks. Sebastian grabs the phone and takes it out of it's holder and passes it across the desk to the cat. She dials a number on it and waits for a pickup.

"Yes, I'd like to report an anonymous tip." She answers. "A Paris art gallery is going to be robbed tomorrow night… When?"

"When?" She whispers to Sebastian.

"After it's closed." He replies.

"After closing time." She answers to the phone. "I don't know when exactly… I don't know who exactly… Send your best agent… I'm sure she'll be necessary… No, I'm not blowing this out of proportion. I just don't want anything to ruin my friend's night… It's strictly professional… He won't be pleased if this happens… Okay… That's done, bye." She converses on the phone.

"If you wanted to steal the art you've just made it much harder for yourself." Sebastian remarks.

"I won't have to if you succeed, you have until that opening." She instructs.

"Understood." He says as he rises out of the chair and heads to the door. He knows what risks he has to take in time travelling just to fix one tiny problem, but it must be done. First, he has to get into the lab, and to do that he needs a computer.

**7:53pm, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.**

He was surprised at the level of security surrounding the venue in terms of getting in and out. A 4192-bit code just to guard a cheap roll up garage door from being broken in was the tip of the iceberg. The sheer amount of numbers would put off any talented hacker from cracking the code, But Sebastian doesn't have that self reservation, it's buried down deep, which means he went and tried to beat the code. Of course, the brute force approach with a laptop would never work against this code. So he instead targeted the algorithms that create the code, which turned out to be a simpler task than he imagined. He didn't even need to go after the algorithms in the first place, in fact, to his surprise, the door was unlocked. He couldn't believe it when he lifted it up slowly in case of booby traps. The owner must have been in a hurry.

It was a very lucky break that allowed him inside the decoy area, the area of the lab made to make intruders think that this is all there is, where he was confronted with another security code; A special polymorphic security code that changed every time he tried to access it. Sebastian went straight for the back door, the hidden entrance the lock, as fighting the code would go nowhere. The trouble is what the keyword was, but his first guess was correct, he didn't even think it would work. He simply typed 'Penelope' and the code lay down and unlocked the door that lead into the real lab area.

How he stands around the time machine, wondering how he would use it, and what all of the controls did. He knows which time to go to, like Penelope; he saw a list of the planned jumps through time that she'd have to make to execute their plans. The trouble would be getting to the right time in the time frame she is meant to be there in order to get her out with minimal fuss. Unlike the machine he saw before, there is no dial to accurately adjust the time. Instead, there is a small metal plate with a glass cylindrical dome with a rounded dome top covering it. He wonders what it's used for, but he figures out that it controls the time by looking at how it's connected. The problem is getting an object from the same time as he saw on the list. Quickly, he opens his computer and searches for someone who can.

**9:34pm**

ThiefNet was easier to use than he thought, he simply had to find a job and bargain for an offer. And that lead him to wait on this street corner for his hired thief to drop off the item. He didn't have any cash to offer since he put it into Bethany's bank account, and $1000 wasn't going to cut it in his opinion. So he spent half an hour doing remote hacking operations, to get himself the money instead of begging from Bethany because she would say no. She doesn't want to attach herself to any criminal operation, no matter what the possible gain for will be. $5500 later, he was ready to make inquires. The first offers he got were 6 figure sums, by the top quality thieves who could get it done without a hitch. The next were lower, sub 50K offers by those that could get it as fast as possible. But he had to go even lower, to the desperate and less experienced to find a thief who could take his offer.

His chosen thief comes around the corner now, not in a car or in an elaborate fashion, riding a bike as fast as can along the road. The thief stops, not more than 16 years old and passes him a back pack before he pedals off quickly around the corner. This thief sees this amount of money as his big break, and was easily willing to do it. As Sebastian walks back to the lab, he spots police driving in the other direction to catch him. He doesn't think about him getting caught or what might happen to him, he only cares about getting his own job done. Once inside, he checks the contents of which there is only one thing. It's a rock, but inside that rock is a tiny grey glint of the metal inside, a rock of iron ore. He places the rock in the receptacle to verify the date which does in fact match the time period he needs to go to. With no holds barred and sense of adventure, he enters the body of the time machine and selects the same time as is on that sheet. With nothing but a computer and the clothes on his back, he travels through time and space.


	9. Poor Reception

**Chapter 9 – Poor Reception**

**Medieval England, 1301.**

Sebastian has landed inside what appears to be a disused barn, a recently disused barn, the barn is not derelict and about to come down, but is messy and as if no one has set foot in here in the past few days. The time machine sits next to a pile of hay that obscures it for potential passers by. After recovering from the unique experience of time travel, he opens his computer. To add to the weirdness he's experienced already, the last thing he expected to have in this time is a Wifi connection. She must have set a local network up somehow whilst she was here. To his delight, it has no password because no one is going to even have a computer in this time so no one could even access it. But he doesn't try to use it; they could track him down and trap him permanently in this time.

So Sebastian quickly gets to work by attaching a transmitter to the USB port of the computer to see if he can access her mainframe without needing to move. The problem will be that since there is no GPS in this time, this direct system will only tell him how far away she is in a straight line without any direction by measuring the time it takes to connect if possible. He gets a signal, but it's unusually very poor, something must be shielding her from the connection. The readout says she's 236 metres away, so to figure out the direction, he walks three steps in a particular direction inside the barn to see if the distance goes down or up. By doing this for several different directions, he calculates the direction she is but getting there would be difficult without blending in. He's no chameleon or stealthy operator, therefore, venturing outside the barn makes him feel uneasy. He could try and re program her from this position but it would take hours to send over one command, that's if it doesn't cut out in the process.

Quietly, he takes a little look outside the van to find that no one is in sight; the path leading into this town is the direction he has to go. So he looks for the next place to find cover and runs quickly for it, which is another wall about 5 metres away. Somehow it makes him closer by 15 metres, it tells him that she's coming this way. As the distance decreases dramatically with each passing second, more information becomes available to him; basic diagnostics become available, a video feed becomes patchy before it runs smoothly as the distance goes into double figures. It means he can communicate with her.

"Penelope!" He says, thinking that doing this is the only way he can save himself. The distance between them stops at 47 metres.

"Is that? You've got a time machine?" She asks in disbelief.

"Yes, I do, you have to come back to the present, he broke the contract." He tries to explain.

"I didn't know you had a clause for time travel." She replies.

"When you went here, you lost communication with me, because of that, he broke the contract." Sebastian explains. "So you have to come back with me."

"I have to finish this." She says. Sebastian goes straight to the command window to change that, but it will take longer than a single line to do, so he has to stall her.

"What exactly do you need to do?" He asks whilst typing away.

"Wait 3 days until I can deliver something to Le Paradox." She explains.

"I can take it back with me, if you come as well." He says.

"I can't, it's not the plan." She rebuffs.

"Screw the plan!" He says, just as he finishes his command and sends it to her.

"I have to finish this." She says to Sebastian's surprise. What he expected was her to abandon her current plans because he shut off the control system, allowing her to leave. But he realizes that he can't do that, not anymore. The ideas have not stayed in the circuitry to be controlled, but have been passed wholly into the brain. She actually thinks she needs to finish the plan. She believes in it.

"Your choice." He says, realizing none of his future efforts will be successful.

"Stay here." Penelope offers. "Help me."

"I can't." He says, looking back at the haystack the time machine is behind.

"I know you'll be punished in some horrible nasty way by Bethany, escape that by staying with me and you'll be given the carrot instead of the stick." She offers. Sebastian has already run across to the time machine to return to the present day.

"Don't go into the time machine!" She warns, but he has already set it to go back to the same place he went from in the present day. He stands inside, hoping for the machine to get him out here as soon as possible. As Penelope runs in her suit of armour to the earlier temporal flux disturbance, a huge spike appears on a device inside, indicating that he has gone away. The temporal flux meter jumps to maximum levels due her proximity to the machine and also because she had the sensitivity turned up to scan for a wider range in case Cooper showed up early. She turns it down as the huge spike drew too much power from other on board systems, which could have made her more vulnerable if they pop in really close to her position. She doesn't know it, but she's now in total control of herself and yet nothing has changed so far. So she returns to building her project, a beast taller than the castle walls that could crush not just Cooper, but the entire gang in one swipe.

**The Present Day, Amsterdam. 9:58pm, 27****th**** March 2013**

The machine appears out of thin air, in the exact same spot it left when it travelled through time for the first time. He's glad to have survived but not in that his plan didn't work. He can't tell this to Bethany, she wouldn't accept this as an answer, but he has to. He walks away from the time machine and sits against a wall to brace himself for the angry reaction he waits for. The video call commences; he waits for her to allow him to talk.

"Back already." She notes.

"I couldn't do it." He simply states. "I turned off the system but she believes in what she has been told, she truly believes in it."

"Why don't you take a walk along the canals to clear your head before you return? It will make you feel better." She offers.

"Are you actually going to remove my initiative?" He asks, remembering the consequences of failure.

"Don't be silly, you take things too seriously sometimes." She remarks.

"Okay, I'll be back again tomorrow morning." He says. He doesn't work the night shift usually unless his agent is in another time zone. So he takes her advice and looks at the stone clad houses that line the canals and the small bridges that cross them. It's a perfect night, not cold but not warm, right at the perfect temperature. And already he feels a little bit better about himself, this was only one mistake, he could recover from it and continue to work in the only line of employment that is possible in his circumstances. The path beside this canal has a few leaves strewn across it, new growth for the spring that has succumbed to the wind channeled along the canals by the buildings either side. She was right, this has definitely made him feel better. More than better in fact, he is ecstatic, delirious even. He doesn't know why, but he is. He feels like a little kid, running at packs of pigeons, running through what little piles of leaves there are, jumping into the canal.

It's only once he is in the air that he realizes what he had done, and also braces for impact in the cold still water. He becomes fully submerged before getting his head above water 5 metres away from the bank which is 2 metres high from the water level, meaning that he can't just swim to the bank and climb his way out and retrieve his computer from the ground. All that euphoria is gone as he frantically looks for an exit, but the nearest one is against the current and Sebastian is not a strong swimmer so it would be out of the question. He worries about his computer and all of the highly sensitive information on it and of how his distance between him and it is increasing. Now he has to keep on floating down stream until he can get himself out. He tries to make a freestyle swimming motion to increase his speed to get out faster, but as he goes further along, he begins to tire. Even though the clothing he is wearing is light, the extra weight and bagginess of it increases with every shake of the leg and every movement in the water.

To his massive relief, two strangers spot him in the water. Sebastian tiredly swims to the bank while they reach down as far as they can in anticipation of getting him out. Sebastian's wet and slippery hands grasp one hand of each of the two person's hands, which pull as hard as they can to lift him out. Sebastian is so relieved to not have to swim anymore, he is exhausted and can hardly stand. He needs the support of the two rats beside him to keep him standing. Their car is at the side of the road, which is where they are trying to take him.

"No, I need my laptop." Sebastian pleads. They pay attention to his plea.

"It's down there, next to the tree." He says, pointing 100 metres back down the canal, water dripping down his arms and sleeves, creating a puddle beside him as he dries out. He watches as the rat logs down the canal and retrieves the computer to him, standing next to the rear of the car. The rat who supports him opens the boot and pushes him down inside, flinging his legs up in the air, his torso half inside. Sebastian is being kidnapped, and for him there is only one priority, destroy the computer. The computer has information which could lead them to the organization and ruin the secrecy behind it. Sebastian kicks out with his left leg, connecting with one of the rat's but not hard enough to deal any damage. The boot comes down quickly as they try to immobilize him from escaping. It comes down like an executioners axe onto his thighs and he screams in pain, a tired, breathless scream.

It alerts everyone around them, even those who had seen this crime and decided to continue their life without interfering. They turn their heads to the bundled kidnapping, some take their smart phones out and start filming as the boot comes slamming down again to further incapacitate the operator. They shoves his heavily bruised legs inside the boot and shut it as hard they slammed it twice before. From inside the dark and felt lined box he's in, Sebastian hears the screech of tires as they accelerate away from the kerb and the engine roaring as he moves around with the violent motions of the car. He then hears a faint hissing sound coming from the rear passenger seat side. In the dark, he can't see what it is but he can hear that something is leaking into this compact space. That's when he begins to panic, they're trying to suffocate him alive. He begins to hyperventilate but remembers that in order to conserve oxygen he has to slow his heart rate down. He smells the air to determine what they are trying to choke him with, it has no odour, so he suspects it's carbon dioxide.

He presses his face against the floor of the boot, carbon dioxide will rise to the top, giving him more breathing time. But doing this makes him feel every single harsh bump the car makes as it races along, the destination unknown to the kidnapped. Much to his further relief, he hears sirens come into the air. Now it's a race against time for him until he either gets saved or he becomes unconscious. It's a never ending change of directions as the car speeds up, slows down, turns left and right to avoid being captured. He can feel each time a wheel hits the kerb as they turn and each time they slightly lose traction, each tiny mistake fills him with hope that they'll fail soon. They pick up some speed as they blast along the straight, police sirens becoming fainter as they drive away. They swerve to miss the oncoming traffic before Sebastian feels the connection between the road and the wheels being no longer there. He's forced upwards as the car falls off something before it splashes into water. Now they are trying to drown him, he thinks, starting to feel out of breath. The sirens become louder as they stop at the edge of whatever the car just came off.

He can feel the car tilt downwards as the passenger cabin fills with water and begins to sink. His vision becomes foggy, even in the dark; he begins to feel fatigued and confused as the body takes in carbon dioxide. He faintly hears splashing outside the car as he loses consciousness. A blinding light takes over, as hallucinations take over his mind. He feels himself floating with bright lights moving quickly around him, then the sound of water splashing everywhere echoing loudly then gradually softer as time passes. A thud stops all of that, a solid thud that affects his whole being. Then there are more thuds, repeatedly against his chest that seems to go straight through his body, as if he was a ghost. The he fills up like a balloon, all of his extremities becoming puffy and rounded before the thuds progressively beat out the air in his body before he is re-inflated again. It's like being light and soft before falling down a set of stairs each time, repeatedly, over and over again for what seems like an eternity. The only new thing that comes is a shrill, high-pitched tone before an instant stiffness flows from his chest of all his extremities. The process repeats; light and fluffy, falling down stairs, high pitch, stiffness. Thn the processes effects seem to wane each time they continue. He doesn't feel as fluffy as before, the stairs are less jarring, the high pitched tone is not so shrill and the stiffness isn't as shocking. It begins to have no effect and then it just goes, all that remains are the blinding lights that are not blinding.


	10. Operation Overlord

**Chapter 10 – Operation Overlord**

**Medieval England. 1301.**

It was all going so swimmingly. It was less that 2 days before they would be finished and she could return home to her own time. All aspects were proceeding as they were planned. Galleth's cane was secure, steel production was working, projects were at the finishing stages, the population were performing their duties without question. She was so close to reaching autonomy for the city, where they could have a place that could produce ancient goods for them to bring into the present to sell for ridiculous prices.

But it never reached that stage. One by one the pieces of her labour had been destroyed. The surveillance balloons lost, the moat monster destroyed, raw material production had ceased and worst of all, Galleth's cane is no longer in her possession.

However she still had one last trick up her sleeve to get back at the gang she knows to have done this. She cursed when they turned up without her knowledge, they must have arrived a long way from her position as they never appeared on her temporal flux scanner. But here they were, the only thing stopping their path being a steel gate that she had used to separate the group, leaving the main miscreant inside to be squashed like the pest he was. That was after she had tricked the overly headstrong Galleth into going too early. She always knew that in any fight he'd be the one itching to make the first blow, so when he thought that he could make contact with his unique sword, he was wrong. He got flung off so easily for the handoff to keep the cane secure until Le Paradox would covertly arrive in the blimp once they had gone, thinking that they had finished the job. It was a clever backup plan in that it played off their thinking that once the leader was gone, the job was done.

But until he would arrive, she would have to deal with the raccoon now hundreds of times smaller then the mech she was now in. It was like her suit of armour, except with lasers and guided missiles, and of course much, much bigger. She had to use special cameras to even see the Cooper running like a headless chicken around the castle floor to avoid the gallium nitride laser beams and barrages of missile attacks. This machine would deter any army from ever attacking this castle, it could send entire battalions of infantry to the grave in an explosion and could render even the sturdiest trebuchets sliced in half, but it could destroy this one raccoon. Much to her frustration, he managed to exploit the only weakness of the machine being the lack of power to adequately power all systems. She could make a nuclear reactor in this time so the suit was powered using coal, an abundant resource in this time, at a rate of kilograms per second. And of course, it had to be the protective force field that had to use the most power out of any system. It left holes in the shield that he managed to shoot arrows through, arrows that he could steer!

Only one other person could make such a modification using 14th century materials, it was that turtle she'd manufactured hate and contempt for. From the point of view of the scheme, there was one problem, the hate was running out. Without it, she'd never be able to fight him; no one who is sane would fight violently against someone they really loved. The memory transfer had given her most of the needs and wants from the control system, but not everything was transferred as cleanly. Emotions only transferred in residual amounts, they would wear away over time until she had returned to her normal emotional state.

As he kept on exploiting the same weakness over and over again, she tried to re route more power to the shields. It meant that the holes were less numerous and smaller, but there were still holes. Reflectively, basing shields right on the weakest part of the structure was not a good design choice, having no arms is not a good design choice either. It was at that point she needed to abandon the gigantic mech, before they destroyed the highly pressurized steam pipes that transferred the steam to the electric generator. The steam would instantly rip the body into pieces if it was released. So when she saw that her shields were still not at full power, it was her time to get out of there. As the explosive arrow hurtled towards destruction, the helmet of the mech blasted away with explosive bolts, allowing the smaller suit of armour to jump away to safety before it would be destroyed as well.

"Do you know how much that suit was worth? It was one of a kind! You've cost me too much already Cooper! It's time to pay the fiddler." Penelope taunts, ready to thrust her steel fist at the trapped raccoon, stuck under the remnants of the body and unable to move. His face was ready to be turned inside out, he couldn't dodge this, he couldn't escape certain death. She had not remembered to keep the gang alive for mental conversion purposes.

"That's enough Penelope!" A voice shouts from distance. The raccoon turned his head first, realizing where it had come from first, allowing Penelope to find the origin of this disturbance.

"Huh?" She exclaims, confused at what that thing is on the castle walls.

"You heard me!" Bentley shouts to make his presence known.

"Bentley? Your suit?... Is that… my moat monster?" She asks, realizing where all of the parts had come from. Was that a proud feeling she felt?

"Yeah, what's left of it anyway. The design was adequate… I made some adjustments." Bentley taunts before jumping down to her level in order to confront her. You were much better anyway.

"It was just a prototype anyway!" Penelope refutes, an outward effort to maintain her technological superiority. It's not good enough.

"Why did you do it Penelope? You owe me that much at least." Bentley asks in a complete change of tone from angry to disbelief.

"Why? For you of course." She explains, her eyes already moistening. "I had to make you see how things could be." Too much time spent with the Grizz had made her subconsciously remember a few rhyming patterns.

"I'm not going to be one of the bad guys, Penelope!" Bentley explains.

"Ha! 'Bad guys'. That's kinda funny considering you work for a thief." She counters. "But the most valuable thing Sly ever stole from you was, was your… potential." Tears start to roll down her cheeks, but she doesn't cry, in fact it's the opposite.

"Together, we… we could have changed the world, but you're still chasing honour for chump change. When are you going to wake up?" She rants, in the excruciating and simultaneous process of waking up, herself.

"So you sold out to Le Paradox for the money?" Bentley asks angrily. Penelope face palms at such short sightedness, but then again they both wear glasses.

"No! You're not listening. He's just a means to an end." Penelope answers. The conflict inside is becoming increasingly harder to contain.

"Wow, and I thought you were smart. Did you really think he would just let you go? He owns you now, you're his puppet. And when you have served your purpose, he's going to..." Bentley rants. But he is stopped by something that has happened right in front of him. He had not been paying direct attention to Penelope, she was giving an indifferent look on her face. But now, she is slumped forward in her seat, the only thing saving her from falling out is her seatbelt around her waist.

"No, No!" Bentley begins to panic, her stings had seemingly been cut just before he would say the same thing. This is the worst thing that could have happened. Of course he was mad that she had betrayed him like this, but to appear to be dead right in front of him like this? It wasn't worthy of more berating or spite. Bentley moves straight away to Sly, still trapped underneath chunk of steel, to free him.

"Help Penelope, I'm getting everyone else inside." Bentley explains, sounding as if he can't do everything fast enough, lifting the steel chunk up to let sly out.

"Are you crazy?" Sly asks, why should he save her after she tried to kill him. Sly had not seen her collapse from his position.

"She did say all of that, but I won't let her die." Bentley says as he rushes over to the gate that traps the rest of the gang. Sly gets up and walks around the mech, with a slight limp, to see Penelope collapsed in her seat. Sly hears the metal gate being raised up from behind him and thinks of how much she meant for Bentley before, and what may happen if she wakes up. Swallowing his pride, Sly reaches up to the compact cabin of the suit of armour and releases the seatbelt. The mouse begins to slowly fall forward, Sly jumps off quickly to try and catch her on the ground. He catches her but it brings a terrific pain to his left ankle, which cause him to fall backwards and makes Penelope land on top of him. Sly doesn't scream, he holds it in as tightly as he can. The rest of the gang run back to the two of them as Sly rolls Penelope off of him to inspect her.

"Is she alive?" Bentley asks quickly and worriedly.

"Is it a good thing if she isn't?" Sly asks.

"No!" Bentley answers.

"Someone do CPR!" Carmelita shouts.

"On it." Sly says, pressing against her chest quickly. But after 6 compressions, he realizes her heart is still beating, rather quickly as well. Bentley was beginning to feel slightly uncomfortable with Sly getting this intimately close to her.

"She's not dead, but she's not conscious." Sly reports.

"What should we do?" Murray asks.

"Let her lie there, you don't save your worst enemy." Galleth answers. But Sly and Bentley give him that look, the one where you know you have really offended someone.

"I'm going." Sir Galleth says as he runs off from the castle to find his cane.

"We have to take her back to the present, to a hospital." Sly says.

"What about Le Paradox?" Carmelita asks.

"I believe this situation is like trying to cook a frypan of bacon and a bolognaise sauce at the same time. One's always going to be more important to someone else, but each parts needs attention at the right time. And right now, Penelope is at that point where the bacon is about to burn where the sauce is not quite there." Murray philosophically explains.

"That is one of the deepest and most meaningful things you have ever said big guy." Sly complements.

"If we get her back quickly, we still can still arrive in time to stop Le Paradox from terrorizing somewhere else." Bentley theorizes.

"But where exactly will that be?" Carmelita asks.

"I'll contact Dmitri back in the van and figure out a way to quickly steal the required artifact in Paris." Sly schemes. Bentley picks up the motionless Penelope with his robotic arms from his mech and begins to slowly walk back to the van so that he doesn't injure Penelope. The others race through the town, as quickly as possible, back to the hideout where the van is. Sly arrives first and locates the communicator in the front of the van. He dials it up while the other frantically pack their items into the van.

"What's cracking dude?" Dimitri asks.

"Where do we go next?" Sly asks hurriedly.

"Hold on a sec." He replies.

"Dimitri, we don't have a second, where do we need to go?" Sly raises his voice.

"Arabia." Dimitri answers, but he pronounces it Ararb-ia to sound hip. It annoys Sly who wants understandable answers.

"Which ancestor am I going to be with?" Sly asks hurriedly, wanting a quick answer.

"Salim al Kupar, there it is." Dimitri answers before Sly hangs up the communicator.

"We're almost done Sly." Carmelita announces.

"We need to find a Arabian artifact somewhere in Paris when we get back." Sly announces.

"There's no need." Carmelita answers as she pulls out a coin from her pocket.

"Is that?" Sly asks.

"Evidence, Ringtail. Don't ever think I'm going to end up like you." She says.

"What? Wealthy, handsome, athletic…" Sly lists.

"A thief." She answers.

"Hey, we're about to go!" Bentley shouts now back in his wheelchair in the van having discarded his quickly built mech. The two of them rush inside the van and head back to the present where they end up in Bentley's lab.

**Bentley's Lab, Amsterdam. 1:04am, 30****th**** March 2013.**

"I thought we were going to Paris?" Sly wonders, but realizes what's in the receptacle. Bentley's computer.

"Doesn't matter, a hospital is a hospital." Bentley answers. "Murray, drive us out of here."

Murray drives up to the lift and it silently raises the van up to ground level.

"Someone raise the garage door." Bentley commands and Sly races out of the van to lift it up, he's surprised that it's not already locked. But he pushes it up anyway has hard as he can to let the van out. Sly rushes back inside and Murray accelerates down the narrow laneway and onto the street, moving straight into the traffic.

"Where do I go Bentley?" Murray asks.

"I'm putting the direction on the windshield." Bentley answers. Using a tiny onboard projector in his wheelchair he displays the directions for Murray, A 1.5 kilometre blast through Amsterdam. It takes less than two minutes for them to do it thanks to a small blue police light and siren being placed on top of the van to clear the traffic.

"Carmelita, you have to take her inside." Bentley asks, he didn't want to have leave Penelope. "You know why."

"Okay Bentley." She answers as she gets out of the van to get some paramedics to help. She would have said that he would need to owe her one for this, but it's not good to bargain with someone so emotionally distraught. She runs into the emergency department.

"Inspector Carmelita Fox, Interpol. We have an unconscious victim I need treated." She tells the receptionist whilst showing her badge. Two paramedics overhear this and rush to her aid as they bring a stretcher on wheels out to the front. The side door of the van is open with Penelope sitting asleep next to Bentley.

"Come on Bentley." Carmelita says as she undoes her seatbelt and carries her up from by her back onto the stretcher. The two paramedics help shuffle her on as Carmelita carries her legs safely onto the stretcher. They strap her to the stretcher so she doesn't roll off and they rush inside to treat her.

"Let's go and finish this skunk off." Carmelita says as she shuts the door.

"Right you are." Sly concurs as they drive off to find a suitable place to disappear from existence.

Meanwhile in the hospital, they are pushing Penelope at a brisk walk down the white aisles of the hospital, trying to get her to the appropriate ward.

"Diagnosis?" One of the paramedics asks.

"Still breathing but unconscious. Possible brain damage, we need an CT as soon as possible to get a better picture." The doctor explains before he dials up the imaging ward.

"Wait here for confirmation." He commands as he waits for the phone to pick up.

"Radiology."

"Is your CT scanner available for immediate use?"

"15 minutes, I'll slot you in." She says.

"15 minutes everyone." The doctor tells his two paramedics before they rush her over to an empty bay where they hook up an ECG machine to measure heart rate and blood pressure, which are now at stable levels. They rush of to treat another patient before they return back to Penelope to move her into the radiology ward for an CT scanner.

"Situation?" The radiologist asks.

"Possible brain damage, unconscious." He answers.

"Okay, onto the bench." She asks as they transfer her onto the thin bench that will slot her inside the large donut of the CT scanner.

"Thank you." She says as they run off to get another patient treated.

"Okay, let's look inside." She says to herself before Penelope is slowly pushed inside so her head is inside the imager. It takes less than 30 seconds for the scan to be completed and the body removed from the scanner. The mouse lies stationary as the results are uploaded to a computer in black and white. What she receives is a very unusual scan, shapes she has never seen before in working here. The rectangular shape at the back of the skull and the weird lines at the bottom make her more confused as to what it is. She quickly calls the head neurologist for advice, he comes rushing over as fast as he can to marvel at these images.

"Hold on a second." He says, looking in more detail. "These weird lines, I've seen them only a few days ago."

"I've never seen anything like it."

"It was a male, came in unconscious and had the same exact lines and details at the back as this one." He explains.

"We have to measure her brain activity, is the MRI room available?" She asks.

"If it isn't, I'll make it available." He replies with determination, he thinks he's on the verge of a major scientific discovery.

"What's the other patient's condition?" She asks.

"He's awake and stable but under police guard." He explains.

"Why?" She asks.

"He was poisoned, maybe he can help them." He says before rushing off to the MRI scanner just as a team of nurses helps Penelope onto a wheeled stretcher.

"Everyone we are moving her to MRI room 1." The head neurologist instructs to the nurses having just ran back from the MRI room. They push her through the artificially lit corridors in these basement levels of the hospital to the MRI room where several other specialists are waiting to see the results of the scan. They know that something unusual has come up and that perhaps the visualization of her brain activity can yield some answers. She is once again, has her head inserted inside a giant donut ring to be scanned. They watch and listen as the loud whirring of the MRI rings through the scanning room, when the machine is working, images of the brain activity come up on a computer screen.

"The central area of the brain is hyperactive in activity." A neurologist notes.

"Everything else is consistent with normal levels of activity." Another one adds.

"Can we rotate the scan?" One of them asks.

"Rotating scan." The operator concurs as they scan from side on instead of from the top.

"She is hyperactive in the limbic system, which means she must be in emotional overload." The head neurologist theorises.

"But what could have caused it?" One of them asks. "No one becomes unconscious for this long because they fainted from shock or surprise."

"Hang on." The neurologist who did the earlier scans interrupts. "Something doesn't add up." She says before rushing out to get a copy of the earlier CT scans. She returns, looking at them intently.

"These scans, they are not identical. The first one has a characteristic rectangular section as the back whereas these current ones don't show anything like that." She explains. "And also, what do you think about these extra lines at the bottom? I don't think they are nerves."

"They look like… wires."

_**A/N: The dialogue when Penelope faces off against Bentley before she collapses is a direct copy for Thieves in Time. This is property of Sanzaru Games Inc. and was used in order to show how this particular story line can be weaved in to existing material seamlessly. **_


	11. Interrogation

**Chapter 11 - Interrogation**

**Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 6:59am, 30****th**** March 2013.**

Sebastian rests in his medical bed, connected to various machines by electrodes attached to his chest. He is tired, aching and fatigued even after having woken up. Several parts of his body have purple patches, similar to bruises, which are caused by the lack of oxygen to those parts. They are less purple than when he first woke up, but those marks and blotches are still there. The doctors said he was extremely lucky not to have brain damage permanent damage. The only ailments he's had are severe bruising to both legs and excessive twitching, which had gone the night before. As he is in a good condition, a police investigator has planned to meet with him. Sebastian knows what this could mean in the context of things, what he wants is them to have found his laptop and not have inspected it's contents. He comes in now, followed by someone who looks like his assistant. The detective wears a cheap suit with a blue tie whilst the other older male is more causally dressed in a buttoned up shirt with the long sleeves rolled up a fraction along with tan corduroys.

"Good morning, Sebastian." He greets, looking at the identifying information at the front of the bed. "I am detective Van Marsle and this is Dr. Fredriksen, he will be helping us today. You have been in a traumatic event, have you not?" He asks, turning on a voice recorder and placing it beside Sebastian's beside table. Sebastian doesn't respond.

"Before we start, I have to ask you to consent to a polygraph test which Dr. Fredriksen will administer." Van Marsle asks.

"Am I allowed to say no?" Sebastian asks.

"Of course, of course." He responds. "It's just, it will make both of our jobs easier. I don't know if there are gaps in your memory or not but if there are then this machine will be able to give all of us the correct picture."

"I don't want to consent." Sebastian confirms.

"Okay then, I'll just move straight to the questions." Van Marsle. "What is your name?"

"Um." Sebastian hesitates; he has already said his name before so therefore he should know. "My name is Sebastian."

"Full name for the record please." He expands.

"Sebastian Koeler." He replies.

"And your occupation?"

"I work as an investments and securities broker for the Fradel bank in Luxembourg." He replies, giving a cover story.

"Tell me, what can you recall about these kidnappers you saw last night?"

"They were both short and looked very similar, like they were related." Sebastian explains.

"Interesting. Do you know them from a previous encounter?"

"No, no I've never met them before they took me." Sebastian replies on the defensive like they are trying to somehow implicate him in for the crime.

"Okay, was there any reason for them targeting you?" He asks.

"Were they targeting me?" Sebastian asks in surprise.

"We have several witnesses who they that they helped you out of the canal before proceeding to kidnap you. And also the wreckage of the vehicle you were captured in was a used carbon dioxide cylinder connected to the trunk, this leads me to suspect that you were targeted by these individuals." Van Marsle explains.

"Did you find a computer on board? They took a computer from me as well." Sebastian asks in hope.

"I was going to bring that up later but since you have asked. It seems that whoever tried to capture you wanted the computer because we found it in a sealed watertight bag that protected it from being destroyed. Was there anything on the computer that would have been of some value to them?" Van Marsle asks.

"No, it had investment portfolios and… and client lists but they shouldn't be able to access them with the protections I have; fingerprint, facial recognition and a password."

Van Marsle pauses to consider what to say next.

"Let me rephrase that question. Is there any information or otherwise that you don't want us to see?"

"Are you trying to capture me, my organization or the two individuals who kidnapped me?" Sebastian accuses.

"I assure you that I do not know a single thing about derivatives and the like, so I am not interested in what you do for your job. What I want are details that can help me corroborate the mountain of evidence we have." Van Marsle explains.

"If you have the evidence, why talk to me?" Sebastian asks.

"Mobile camera footage does not tell us anything about a motive, we can prove that they did it without your help, but we can't explain why and that is where you can be of service to us." The detective explains.

"It was dark, I was tired like I have been for the past 2 days. Couldn't it just have been a random attempt?" Sebastian asks again.

Dr. Fredriksen goes over to Van Marsle and whispers something in his ear.

"And what is he a doctor of anyway?" Sebastian asks irately.

"Behavioral psychology." Dr. Fredriksen replies.

"Calm down Sebastian, we want the best for all of us because it means we can all part ways and continue on with our lives… whatever they may be." Van Marsle urges.

"What did he tell you?" Sebastian asks, both worried and defiant.

"You are hiding something." Dr. Fredriksen states flately, but confidently as if he can reach into his mind and pluck out the answers. "On that computer, is something which you don't want us to see, it doesn't take a PhD to figure that out. But what I can see is that this isn't the only thing you are not telling us, which is unusual because… you don't seem afraid of your attackers, you don't seem to be in fear of retaliation or in fear of what they did to you. Have you ever been in a situation like before? Have you served in the armed services, police or Intelligence agencies?"

"No, I'm an investment banker. I've never been involved with any of those organizations." Sebastian replies, still trying to figure out where this could lead in his head.

"Are you sure about that answer?" Dr. Fredriksen answers.

"I know what I do for a living." Sebastian asserts.

"I hope you reconsider about the polygraph machine, it would make it a much easier time for all of us." Dr. Fredriksen asks.

"I stand with my first answer." Sebastian asserts again.

"How about if we used sodium pentathol or an fMRI?" Dr. Fredriksen offers.

"You really want the truth from me don't you?" Sebastian comments out loud.

"It's all we've ever wanted. So, I suggest you let Dr. Fredriksen do his job and administer this test so we can all continue with our lives." The detective says, really wanting his subject to be a little more cooperative. Sebastian gives it some thought in his head. It is unproven whether the control system can beat a polygraph machine, so Sebastian decides to find out if it can considering his options are limited.

"Okay, strap it on." Sebastian orders.

"Thank you Sebastian." Van Marsle answers as the doctor's briefcase is zipped open and a large form is taken out before the machine is placed at the end of the bed where there is space for it to the used.

"You have to sign this consent form." Van Marsle asks whilst he places a pen on top of the 20 plus page document.

"Do I get a chance to read it first?" Sebastian asks.

"Sure, but what it mainly says is that everything that happens is here is confidential and we have to protect your privacy, things of that agenda." The detective assures Sebastian.

"Let's get this over with." Sebastian says as he puts his signature to the short thin black line.

"Okay. The first thing I have to say to you is that there is nothing to be nervous about, there is no punishment given by the machine for lying, all it does it measure. It measures your heart rate, respiration and blood pressure amongst other things." Dr.. Fredriksen explains as he attaches the required measuring equipment to the patient. "First, I am going to ask some questions for me to establish a baseline. I would like you to answer yes to the first questions I ask you. Can you do that for me please?"

Sebastian nods as a roll of paper is loaded into the machine to record all of the various measurements. The roll of paper begins to unroll and inks of different colours are printed on by the small metal rods that protrude from the body of the machine.

"Is your name Sebastian?" Dr. Fredriksen asks.

"Yes."

"Are you a girl?"

"Yes." Sebastian answers, thinking briefly of what it might be like.

"Detective, you can proceed." Dr. Fredriksen says.

"Thank you." Van Marsle responds. "Were there one, two or three attackers in the crime?"

"Two." Sebastian answers.

"Have you ever had a previous involvement with your attackers?"

"No."

"Do you think this was a random attack?" The detective asks. Sebastian pauses before answering, realizing that he has to offer some truth to make them think that they are getting somewhere.

"No."

"Doctor, can you leave us for now?" The detective asks.

"We need to finish the test first." Dr. Fredriksen urges.

"You can look over the data after, I want to have a one on one discussion with Sebastian over here." Van Marsle explains. Dr. Fredriksen stands up out of his chair and leaves the machine on, looking at the piece of paper still receiving results as he leaves the immediate vicinity.

"What do you think is in my briefcase?" Van Marsle asks.

"I don't think…"

"That this is relevant? I'm sure that when you see what's inside that you'll realize that it's incredibly relevant." Van Marsle says, leaning over to slowly unzip his leather briefcase. "Would you like to a have a guess?"

From the ECG machine behind Sebastian, Detective Van Marsle can see the heart rate of his subject rise dramatically to 110 beats a minute. Sebastian is nervous, and he can easily tell if that emotion is not visible on his face.

"You'll be hearing from my employers about this." Sebastian exclaims angrily, but in a controlled way. He doesn't want to be petty in this engagement.

"But you haven't even seen what's inside." Van Marsle notes sarcastically.

"That's my computer, isn't it?" Sebastian asks.

"Congratulations Sebastian, you have guessed correctly." The detective answers as he pulls out a sealed plastic case containing the laptop inside. He places the case on his lap whilst the subject stares at it intently, thinking of how to get it back. Slowly, the detective unseals the plastic bag and pulls out the computer slowly, deliberately slowly to milk every single second out of this experience to try and provoke a reaction. He slowly pulls the screen up and turns it on; Sebastian can tell it's on as the back of the screen becomes bright.

"Tell me what you know about this girl." He asks, turning the screen around to show diagnostic details of someone labeled agent 174. "Apart from her heart rate and other…"

Sebastian reacts, in a calculated move of aggression, by thrusting himself forward at the detective whilst still attached to the medical equipment behind him and the polygraph machine next to his legs. It makes the screen resting on top of a wheeled trolley to come off and crash to the ground, not damaging it significantly, but it does crack the plastic border around it. Sebastian doesn't feel the excruciating pain of the electrodes being unstuck from his body like several bandaids being ripped off at once, he's too focused on getting that computer back to feel it completely. The detective stands up and lift the computer away from the clutching arms of it's owner. Sebastian, still intently focused on the computer, swings his legs around to the side to get out of the bed and retrieve his computer back. The polygraph machine gets flung onto the ground as Sebastian moves away from it and the cords and wires become taught. The detective puts the computer down behind him before turning to face the enraged patient.

"Stop it! Nurse!" Van Marsle urges as he grips onto Sebastian's shoulders as Sebastian in turn does the same. They wrestle just in front of his bed but Sebastian isn't physically built to overpower the detective, no matter how much his need is to protect the nature of the organization. Two nurses arrive and separate the pair from each other. Sebastian doesn't want to stop and continues to be aggressive in order to get his computer.

"I want to question you further, so once you are discharged from this hospital, I want to see you at a police station, so you can explain to me fully the contents of your computer. If you don't, then you will be charged for assaulting an officer of the law and sent to prison. Understand?" Van Marsle asks. All that is heard from Sebastian are more grunts as he tries to break free of the two nurses grasp. Sebastian doesn't want to give an answer, he wants to grab his computer and get out of there as quickly as possible.

"An answer?" The detective asks.

"Fine, but why does it have to be at a police station? Can't it be somewhere more, relaxing?" Sebastian asks.

"No." The detective answers strongly. "Police station, as soon as you are discharged."

The detective stares right into the eyes of his subject, to impose himself as being the stronger out of the two. He goes and collects the computer and puts it in the protective plastic covering which in turn is put inside the leather briefcase. He makes sure to stay out of range of a potential outburst as he passes around Sebastian before making his way through the fluorescently lit corridors to an elevator where Dr. Fredriksen is waiting for him.

"How did it go?" Dr. Fredriksen asks.

"You were right." Van Marsle answers.

"Oh come on detective, bluffing is easy to do for law enforcement." Dr. Fredriksen explains. Van Marsel presses the button to call the elevator.

"But bluffing is when you have nothing, this was just playing according to our hand." The detective answers.

"I say it's bluffing because, I know that you don't know what that meant on the computer. You think you have the winning cards and it's true, but they won't win unless you find out how you can win using it." Dr. Fredriksen explains.

"You can tell all of that from my behavior?" Van Marsle asks as he walks into the elevator along side the doctor.

"Nope, that's 30 years of experience working with law enforcement." Dr. Fredriksen answers.


	12. Imprisonment

**Chapter 12 – Imprisonment**

**Somewhere. Sometime.**

Its all gloomy inside, every surface seems to be incredibly rough and coarse as if each surface was coated with sandpaper. Even this smooth metallic bench, held up by thick steel chains embedded in the wall, seems to be as rough. The prisoner awakes, only seeing with the three hanging LED bulbs outside this cell giving any illumination to this area, turning to look a through the cell door. Upwards of the frame of the door, the roof never appears into view, instead disappearing into infinite darkness. The prisoner approaches the door slowly on the uneven stone floor, it looks down to make sure that it's feet don't trip and make the body fall. Negotiating this small task seems so much more difficult than it once was, each tiny crack in the stone is like the Grand Canyon and each line of mortar is like crossing the Amazon.

After completing the arduous journey, being cautious about every step, the prisoner takes a more detailed look outside the cell. There are many cells that are the same, stretching beyond the range of the prisoner's vision on this floor and upwards, but none of these cells are occupied. The prisoner is the only one inside, no guards are visible from the cell patrolling the cells; but they wouldn't need to since there is only one to look out for. The prisoner grasps the slightly rusty steel frame of the door with both hands, the black paint having been eroded allowing water to corrode the metal. The prisoner begins to pull on the door, trying to break free. However, this slight pressure has alerted the guards and they come rushing from the left right and centre to the cell to check on the prisoner. The guards extend right into the darkness, too many to count, all of them of different heights and sizes but all in the same uniform.

The guards all wait around the cell for the prisoner to dare try and pull on the bars again. The ground begins to shake, like an earthquake, followed by the infinite darkness turning into infinite light to bright to glance at for less than a second. The guards seem to be affected by it, they turn their faces away from the light and some retreat back into their quarters. However, the prisoner doesn't react at all. The prisoner didn't expect this to come, nor did the prisoner think that these changes were of it's doing. The eyes of the guards all turn back to the prisoner, suspecting that it caused this disturbance. They don't advance a step, there is an exact 2 metre radius around the centre of the prison door that all of the guards obey. Defiantly, the prisoner grabs two of the vertical bars in the cell door and pulls on them again, but the guards don't react to this unlike previously. So the prisoner decides to try again, progressively pulling harder until the two bars become unstuck from their horizontal supports. The prisoner looks at the two bars that it has taken from the door and drops them in amazement of it's power. The solid bars fall onto the ground, which cling and clank until they cease to move.

The prisoner returns to face the door again, reaching out to grab the cell again. But this time, the slightest amount of effort pulls the small section of the door out of place. It came out like it was polystyrene resting on top of the steel support without any adhesive. The prisoner places the third steel bar on the ground this time, not dropping it like before. When it contacts the ground, it makes the same clink sound as the other two, the prison becomes confused as to how this had happened, but one other thing that had remained constant is that the guards faces remained ever fixed on the prisoner. The prisoner stands back up right, directly facing the sea of guards that watch but don't touch. It begins to make it feel no longer confused about the situation, but becoming more comfortable with each second they stay there. The prisoner tries to look at each one of them, just to see what they are like, all different types acting like one. The prisoner slowly builds anger about the guards constant presence, watching every move, so in a raw and primeval burst of anger. The prisoner kicks out at the prisoner door, to further dare them to come closer and react.

However, it didn't work out as intended. Instead of making a loud and provocative sound, the door went flying off it's hinges, landing straight into the guards directly opposite the cell. They fall over like bowling pins, but don't seem to pay any attention to their bloody injuries and continue to watch the prisoner. But the prisoner suddenly feels powerful, the prisoner is powerful. The prisoner takes a step outside the boundaries of the cell where the door used to be. A single step, to test the reaction of the guards, which again gives nothing to be alarmed about. The prisoner wants to escape, but it holds caution to the amount of guards in it's way. Suddenly, a blaring noise breaks the pin drop silence, not a siren sound but a deeper roar. It makes some guards cover their ears and run away from the area, but more than half of the original number of guards are still there, a number still too high for the prisoner to count. The prisoner has to make a decision fast, to decide whether to go now or to stay in the safety of the cell.

Of course, the prisoner doesn't want to be confined any longer. Every single day was restrictive and claustrophobic, having only the deepest depths allocated to this prisoner. So the prisoner lashes out, ready to fight. It takes a kick to the first guard within it's range and lands a blow that seems to do significant damage, completely winding the guard to leave it breathless. But the guard recovers almost instantly to punch back, sending the prisoner flying back against the dark grey stone wall, landing with a heavy thump before the second quieter thump onto the ground. The prisoner is shaken but undeterred, like before, the guards haven't moved from their spots, returning to their holding pattern around the cell like some invisible boundary they have been ordered not to cross. The prisoner gets back up on it's feet and surveys the crowd for potential weaknesses. The prisoner returns back to the three steel bars just inside the cell and picks all three of them up, two in the left and hand one in the right. The first thought of the prisoner is to throw them at the pack of guards.

But the prisoner waits, and looks for another way. The mortar on the sidewalls is flaking away, so the prisoner wonders if the way out is not through, but up. So the prisoner goes to the wall to the left of the cell, in full view of the guards, and drives the steel bar into the mortar to bury it firmly into the structure about 80 centimeters off the ground. It's completely solid on the wall when the prisoner tugs on it to check it's solidity. So the prisoner puts one leg up on the bar and then the other and tries to balance but has to step off and try again. The prisoner was not blessed with perfect balance unlike others that it knows, but they're so far away at the moment. The prisoner tries and tries until it manages to balance solidly on the bar. So now, it looks up for a place to put the next bar and finds a joint closer to the corner so the prisoner can balance against the side wall. Once again, the prisoner drives the steel bar into the mortar and begins to grab the bar with one hand. The prisoner looks up to where it wants to go, the level up, and throws the remaining bar up to the walkway to be collected later. This allows the prisoner to grab the bar with both hands and lift itself out up to about 30 centimetres below the walkway but it's a 2 metre jump to the handrail and safety. The prisoner carefully balances on the bar with both it's feet and slightly leans against the back wall, assessing the jump. The prisoner psyches itself up and jumps as hard as it can, flying through the air much further than intended. Instead of the trying to reach the hand rail, the prisoner jumped over the hand rail and landed in front of a cell at least 15 metres away.

The prisoner never thought about it's special abilities whilst it was inside this newly constructed flat pack fortress. The guards had made sure to keep the prisoner in line and conform to the standards of the prisoner. But now, the guards watch helpless from below as the prisoner walks back to the metal bar and picks it up before walking the length of the walkway before turning left where for the first time, it sees the exit, it sees freedom. As the prisoner walks along, the guards move along the floor below, as if they were trying to catch her incase it decided to drop down. But the prisoner won't make that mistake, this opportunity is too good to turn down. About 80 metres away, the exit. The prisoner looks down at the helpless and trapped guards that scuttle along like crabs, watching every step. The prisoner thinks about running for it, but with no guards up the top, it feels no pressure to rush. However, the exit is on the ground floor, which is where all of the guards are. So the prisoner tries to walk faster, so the guards scuttle along faster. In turn, the prisoner tries to run so the guards follow it's lead. By this time, the prisoner is only a few metres away from the end of the walkway. It notices that the guards all stop before the exit, not wanting to step outside the prison.

So the prisoner walks back down the walkway, right to the very start to get as much space and distance as possible to beat the guards. All this time, the prisoner tries to remind itself about how it's so close and that it can beat the guards as long as it remembers who it really is and not the prisoner. As the prisoner walks back, the prisoner sheds the restrictions and limits the guards had told it. Being so close, the prisoner doesn't need them anymore; it has no use for them. So the prisoner looks down at the guards below as it leans back on the handrail and readies itself to sprint. The prisoner holds the hand rail behind it and launches away like someone starting a luge race and runs the 30 metres to the left hand turn before pouring all of it's energy into running as fast as it can to the exit. After only 10 metres, the prisoner is travelling at speeds greater than the guard's top speed, which is only the start. The prisoner continues accelerating faster, leaving the guards behind as they chase as they have been told to. As the prisoner gets closer to the exit, it judges when to jump over the side rail to get down to the bottom floor. At about 20 metres to go, the prisoner jumps with a scissor kick over the rail to get over it. The prisoner clears it perfectly, the guards over 20 metres behind. The prisoner performs a perfect forward roll only a few metres away from the exit before rushing out towards freedom.

And then Penelope wakes up.

_**A/N:**_** Bentley said that Penelope went to prison and then broke out, but he never counted it on happening like this. I hope you enjoyed this special abstract take on that idea.**


	13. Freedom

**Chapter 13 – Freedom**

**Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 7:48pm 30****th**** March 2013**

It's dark, but not too dark in that she can't see. Even with the few cables attached to electrodes on he chest and the strap around her arm to measure blood pressure, she feels freer than ever. Penelope's first thought is to think of where she is; clearly it's a hospital bed. She looks around to gather her surroundings, it's only her in this beige walled room, before reaching out from under her blanket and pressing the call button. A nurse comes about 15 seconds later.

"You've woken up." The nurse notes to confirm it to herself.

"I have." Penelope answers, with somewhat of a feeling of pride in admitting it.

"Penelope, we have instructions to let someone from Interpol talk to you when you wake up." The nurse explains as she leaves the door open for a certain lovely Interpol agent to walk inside.

"Penelope, my name is…" Carmelita begins to introduce as the nurse shuts the door.

"Inspector Carmelita Fox, I know." Penelope answers.

"I have some, difficult, news to tell you." Carmelita warns, not nearly the same as the other difficult news she's had to deal with over the past day.

"If I were to guess, it would be about the mind control system inside my head." Penelope guesses.

"Correct." Carmelita answers.

"Which means you probably either want to punish me or ask my help to go after the people who put this in my head." Penelope figures out.

"I won't have to punish you if you do the second option." Carmelita answers.

"Okay, so…" Penelope begins. But Carmelita just has to tell her.

"Sly's gone." Carmelita admits, it makes her deeply sad.

"Gone, as in… dead?" Penelope asks.

"No." Carmelita snaps back, refusing to let that notion work into her. "He's just… missing."

"I bet you want me to help with that after I help you." Penelope answers.

"Don't talk about it, Bentley can't find him so I doubt you will. Which brings me to ask this question before you tell me what happened, you owe this to him as much as to yourself, why did you turn your back on him?" Carmelita asks, sitting on the foot of the bed facing Penelope.

"I didn't I… whatever I said before, that was the control system, that wasn't me. And I didn't run away, I was kidnapped. I thought he would have been searching for me. Where is he? I need to explain this to with someone who could understand it from a technological and biological viewpoint. Not that I don't think you could. It's just…" Penelope tries to explain.

"I get it, you're both smarter." Carmelita admits. "So when the doctor clears you we are heading off to Luxembourg."

"Has someone been probing into my mind?" The mouse asks.

"No, you aren't the only one going to help us out." Carmelita answers, getting off the bed and approaching the door.

"Who?" Penelope asks.

"I can't say." Carmelita answers.

"Can I ask two questions before you go? How is Bentley?" Penelope asks. Carmelita turns in front of the door to face Penelope in order to answer the question.

"He's tired, but I haven't seen him since Sly disappeared. I've only spoken to him on the phone and he sounds like he hasn't slept whilst he's been looking." Carmelita answers.

"For me?" Penelope answers.

"For Sly." Carmelita answers.

"Oh? Well, I guess, you can go get the doctor so we can finish this off." Penelope says.

_Perhaps he doesn't love me anymore, I hope I can explain it all to him so it can go back to how it was. _Penelope thinks.

"Ok." Carmelita says before she walks out of the room. A doctor comes in a minute later and predictably, she passes the necessary checks as she wasn't injured physically or mentally from the ordeal. In a few minutes, all of the diagnostic equipment is removed; the electrodes are unstuck from her chest and the strap is removed which allows her to leave. But before that, the doctor returns with a clear plastic bag containing what she was wearing at the time, the same yellow one piece mechanic outfit with a small 'Le Paradox' badge on it, but that is ripped off before she leaves the room. The last sign of the world no one ever knew about.

"She's all yours Inspector." The doctor instructs before walking off to continue his job. Penelope and Carmelita navigate through the corridors past doctors checking electronic tablets instead of clipboards with paper and ward of ill or injured patients. Penelope expects a marked police car to take her to the train station but Carmelita pulls out a set of keys to what appears to be her normal civilian vehicle.

"You sit in the back." Carmelita instructs, opening the rear door for her. Penelope doesn't see a need to disobey and therefore gets in without a fuss before Carmelita takes the driver's seat. Penelope looks at some of the definitely non-standard equipment equipment in the front, such as a police scanner resting on top of the dashboard. As Carmelita drives out of the hospital carpark, Penelope wonders whether she does all of her in the field police work from here instead of a police car or even an unmarked car. If so, then no wonder Sly had gotten away so many times, the police are incredibly underfunded.

"You never asked the second question." Carmelita states as they turn onto the road.

"I already have." Penelope answers.

"I know, just making sure you're not trying to be a smart ass. You asked three questions anyway." Carmelita explains. "Now I'm going to ask you some questions."

"Do I have a choice?" Penelope asks.

"Yes, you can sit in silence for 2 hours or you can help. But I know what you're going to do." Carmelita says.

"There is only one choice, especially since you have your shock pistol sitting on the opposite seat." Penelope notes.

"First of all, how did the time machine work?" Carmelita asks.

"That's not the first question I would have asked." Penelope replies.

"It's mine, so answer it." Carmelita says forcefully, without turning her head.

"In simple terms, it's a time machine. There's no way to explain it simpler than that." Penelope answers.

"Was it prone to failure?" Carmelita asks.

"No, we've worked on it for 8 years to iron out all possible failures." Penelope answers.

"But it wasn't the only time machine you built, right?" Carmelita asks.

"You mean the one for Le Paradox? That… was… me." Penelope answers, without a care for the consequences, leaning back into the seat.

"You're lying." Carmelita accuses.

"I know of two time machines in existence around the world, and I've helped build both of them so I know that they are the only ones." Penelope elaborates.

"You're wrong." Carmelita replies.

"Go on, you tell me." Penelope challenges the driver to reveal her hand.

"You built a second time machine, or should I say, time tunnel, for Le Paradox?" Carmelita asks.

"Time tunnel?" Penelope asks.

"Sly's life depends on it." Carmelita adds, getting slightly emotional. It makes Penelope more worried and coercive.

"What?" Penelope asks, becoming confused at the breadth of the situation she has be encompassed in as they stop at a red light. Carmelita grips her shock pistol and aims it at Penelope's head.

"Did you build a time tunnel for Le Paradox?!" Carmelita shouts angrily.

"No! I've never heard of it until now!" Penelope answers, outwardly being unafraid but inside she knows that the pistol is not set to stun.

"You better fear every single time this car stops because my trigger finger is getting itchy, you wouldn't want that to happen would you?" Carmelita threatens, putting down the pistol in preparation for setting off in the traffic.

"The only way he could have done it is use the designs and plans from the first one to construct this… How does this tunnel meant to work?" Penelope asks.

"Something about sending us floating through time forever with no control as if he had set it to 'shuffle'." Carmelita explains.

"Us?" Penelope asks. "You and Sly?"

"Right now, I think if Bentley was given the offer of Sly's return for your death, he would have no hesitation in accepting it." Carmelita asserts, she is just completely angry about any mention of Sly. The grieving process has not finished yet, denial is rife.

"He said that… about me?" Penelope asks, fearful of losing her relationship.

"Whatever you want to believe." Carmelita answers, still in the process of calming down whereas Penelope is just feeling down.

"Well, I don't believe it. Probably like you don't believe Sly is dead." Penelope says. Carmelita pauses to think over that statement. "I think I know why this 'time tunnel' blew up."

"How?"

"Simple, Neither Bentley or I didn't built it. If Le Paradox built it in that amount of time without testing, the probability of it failing on the first attempt is almost certain. It probably was inside the blimp as well which meant it was connected to the same power supply which would have easily been overwhelmed if it was turned on. When it turned on, the nuclear reactor would overheat. Steam would begin to leak from the pipes and tear it apart whilst it was in the air, burning and tearing apart balloon, making it leak helium and lose altitude. Depending on where the blimp was, a crash landing could have either been fatal or catastrophic. In open land it would have caused a huge hole at best, a new Chernobyl at worst. But if this was over a city… that would be…" Penelope wonders out loud. Thinking of what the devastation might be if such a failure occurred. But unbeknownst to her, Carmelita is reliving it again, the terrifying sight from afar of seeming the blimp disintegrate before her eyes, knowing that Sly was on board somewhere in that wreckage.

"But that would have been if it landed. At regular cruising height, the blimp wouldn't hit the ground if the time tunnel was activated. It would have vanished somewhere… sometime."

It's made Carmelita feel uneasier, so she pulls into a street and parks. She takes a breath, grabs her shock pistol and turns around to Penelope.

"I don't suppose you know where it is then?" Carmelita asks.

"How would I know?" Penelope asks.

"Because if you can describe every minute detail of exactly what happened on that blimp, you would definitely know where it went." Carmelita reasons, checking the setting on the pistol to make sure it's going to be painful.

"I know what would have happened because he copied my plans. And is this about finding Sly the whole time?" Penelope asks. "You only want to help me so I can help you."

"Helping you is the by-product of helping me." Carmelita explains. "So I suggest you either be useful or you can go to prison."

"I've already broken out, and I don't intend to go back in." Penelope answers. Carmelita looks at Penelope to try and figure out what it meant. But she decides it's already taking too much time, so she pulls out of the carpark and continues the journey through the night to Luxembourg.


	14. Reunion

**Chapter 14 – Reunion**

**Luxembourg. 10:12pm, 30****th**** March 2013.**

"Nice view, Isn't it?"

"If only you could see it." Sebastian remarks, slouched against one of the empty cubicles in this building opposite the bank, looking inside to the 4th floor to try and find something of use. But the light is not what he meant by him not seeing it. The problem is below their feet and out of sight from this position.

"Excuse me?" The policeman asks, having only been sent here to watch him until someone higher up would come and replace him.

"I've always liked the ornate facades of buildings in this city. I sometimes stare across the street from my desk for minutes at a time in order to look at a finely carved cornice or roof ledge." Sebastian remarks sarcastically.

"Please be quiet sir." The policeman asks, trying to control his temper.

"How much longer do you have to be here anyway? We know that we don't like each other, it will be of mutual benefit for us to part ways." Sebastian offers. The policeman remains silent and stationary, watching his target.

"It was worth a shot." Sebastian admits. "So, how's your cheating wife?"

"How dare you?" The policeman asks, enraged at this comment.

"She's been doing for quite some time, 1 year at least I think." Sebastian says, still unmoved from against the cubicle wall as the policeman stands over him.

"That's it you brat!" The policeman says, about to throw a right hook towards his face as punishment for slandering his wife.

"I wouldn't do that. You hit me, that wouldn't be good for your job, there are cameras watching you." Sebastian explains. The policeman looks around for one but sees nothing in this unlit room.

"No, there aren't any." The policeman replies.

"I beg to differ." Sebastian taunts. There are two cameras the he knows of, trained right on the policeman this very second. "You leave now, you can actually catch your wife in the act. Number 22, apartment 4C if you are interested."

The policeman mutters something inaudible under his breath of a profane nature before looking up to see the main door open with two females walking through.

"Inspector Carmelita Fox, Interpol. You can leave now." Carmelita instructs as she escorts Penelope into the building. Once the policeman has heard of these words, he rushes towards the exit, eager to seek out the alleged affair that he has ben told of. Carmelita and Penelope both step aside into a corridor to let the policeman run past, not content with waiting for a lift so he takes the stairs.

"Miss Fox, how nice you could bring Penelope with you." Sebastian greets without moving from his spot, it's become quite comfortable for him.

"Sebastian?" Penelope wonders out loud.

"Mr Koeler, you know why you are here." Carmelita says as she advances on where she thinks she is.

"Perfectly well, but it must be such a difficult time for you, having just lost your secret relationship with the infamous Sly Cooper." Sebastian taunts. It enrages Carmelita, who storms over to him and draws her pistol.

"How do you know that?" Carmelita asks fiercely.

"He's wired." Penelope explains from the other side of the office.

"Lift your shirt." Carmelita commands.

"No, in his head. He's being fed information." Penelope explains. Carmelita goes up to Sebastian and checks his ears, looking for an earpiece like Sly and his gang would use. Thinking about Sly would be a costly distraction for Carmelita, so she tries her hardest to refrain from doing so.

"So, you two are going to break into that building over there." Carmelita points out across the street.

"We know what it is, we just don't want to do it." Sebastian explains with a smile on his face. Like he's certain he will get his way. Carmelita turns to Penelope for someone to back her up.

"I'll do it." Penelope says.

"But why? We were a team." Sebastian asks, standing up to face her as Penelope slowly walks over to the others.

"Because turning off the control system was the best thing to happen to me and now you are going to pay for it." Penelope explains.

"The control system is only the tip of the iceberg." Sebastian explains to make her look like a fool. "Now, as for you inspector, you are being surrounded right now. You have no exit, and no backup or Sly Cooper to bail you out. So, if you would like this to end non violently, there is a briefcase waiting for you with 1 million euros inside in cash. All we ask is that if there is any case we don't want you or your organization looking into, we'll let you know and you'll stay away."

"Oh come on." Sebastian continues to taunt. "You want to punch me, you want to make my muscles convulse violently with your shock pistol. You know that if you shock me, the electronics inside my head will overheat, causing brain damage and most likely death. But you won't do it."

At that moment, Carmelita grabs Sebastian by the neck and brings him in front of her like a meat shield with the shock pistol pressed against his temple.

"Very good." Sebastian says slowly with a wicked chuckle. "If there was one weakness in you it is your temper."

"Come on! Come out now before he gets it!" Carmelita threatens.

"They don't care about me, but there are 4 snipers on the opposite roof you should care about." Sebastian explains so Carmelita moves him around to face the windows to prevent them from shooting at her.

"You're coming with me." Carmelita says, dragging him away from the windows and into the elevator lobby where they are out of direct sight from the snipers. In reality, there are no snipers on the opposite roof. Sebastian is simply playing mind games with someone who is not at their peak mentally.

"So, 1 million euros sounds like a nice payday: you could pay off your mortgage, you could go on a holiday although I suppose you've had enough for a lifetime right now." Sebastian offers.

"A bribe, that just means I can put you away for a few more years." Carmelita explains as he squeezes his neck tighter with her left arm.

"In 15 seconds the middle elevator will arrive at this floor carrying a payload of tear gas, it can only be stopped by accepting the offer." Sebastian explains quickly. "Get paid to save yourself."

Carmelita won't accept that through as she frantically look for a solution. But Penelope knows what to do and goes to the centre elevator of the three and forces the doors open before bracing herself and stiffening her legs to prevent them from closing.

"Shoot the cables!" Penelope orders as she gets down low to avoid being hit, away from the balls of electricity. Carmelita reacts and blasts the steel cables until they snap and send the car dropping briefly before it is caught by the safety mechanism between floors to prevent the occupants from falling to their deaths. Once it is done, Carmelita grabs a pair of handcuffs and ties Sebastian at his wrists before tripping him up on the floor. Carmelita then holds the doors open to let Penelope out, giving her the pistol in the process.

"Don't let him leave the room!" Carmelita shouts to Penelope who stands over Sebastian with the pistol pointed at him. The inspector then judges the distance down the shaft before jumping down about 4 metres into the top of the elevator car.

"In your hands, the pistol is like a blunderbuss, shoot from within 5 metres and impossible to miss me, shoot from further than that and it's impossible to hit me." Sebastian taunts as he rolls over onto his back to sit back up.

"I shot down planes for a living, I could hit you from 50 metres." Penelope taunts back.

"Why not try?" Sebastian asks as he tries to stand up without using his hands.

"I don't need to." Penelope replies.

"But you want to."

"Of course I do."

"So? Go ahead, be the hero before backup arrives in less than 10 seconds." Sebastian taunts but Penelope won't be drawn into it. However, she hears the sound of the door to the stairs unlatch and Penelope briefly turns away from Sebastian to point the gun at the door. She is bowled over from behind by Sebastian like a charging bull, making her lose balance and fall on the ground, shooting the pistol, hitting the roof before it falls out of her hand along the polished stone floor. Sebastian quickly bends down to pick up the gun with his hand behind his back and tries to aim it back at Penelope, making sure to be out of melee range. The door swings open to allow Carmelita to return back up to the 4th floor. Sebastian stands in a way so that he is in between Carmelita and Penelope so he faces Penelope and points the gun at Carmelita.

"You both are so gullible." Sebastian notes, facing Penelope. Carmelita found nothing down there, it was a perfectly planned distraction to improve his chances. "And because of that Inspector, you have to pay for their new cables and a new coat of paint."

Sebastian briefly looks up at the blackened section of white roof with char marks all around it from the severe heat delivered by the burst of energy, the other two look at it as well.

"Which way do I turn the switch so that I don't kill you?" Sebastian asks to Carmelita.

"If you know everything then why ask?" Carmelita counters.

"Because she can't see it." Sebastian answers rhetorically. Penelope realizes what it all means now, how he's been able to see everything and give extraordinary details without prior knowledge. The control systems my be off, but the transmission on her optic nerve and the audio recording from the ear drums are still working which are feeding information directly to Sebastian. It means the operator is being operated.

"What If do this then?" Penelope says, shutting her eyes so that they can't see anything.

"It makes no difference." Sebastian says, still facing Penelope. It gives Carmelita the opportunity to maneuver closer behind Sebastian without being seen, or being told that she's being seen in his ear. In order to counter this predicted move, Sebastian moves closer to Penelope so that he's not directly in front, should it be that the mouse decides to take a wild swing at him. Sebastian can now see both of them at once in his own field of view.

"Don't you move, either of you." Sebastian warns again, turning the pistol to face Carmelita having brought the pistol to his right side from behind his back, the pistol points forwards instead of backwards. They stand in silence in the room, as if Sebastian wants them to wait for something. But neither of the hostages aren't waiting around, they are actively thinking of a way out. Penelope is constantly thinking of where he is exactly so that she could line up just one punch to incapacitate him before he could fire. Carmelita is trying to find a place for cover or him to make a mistake. The endless stalemate needs to be ended now in Penelope's mind. So she slowly clenches her right fist, the one that's closest to Sebastian before opening her eyes and quickly turning to her right. Instinctively, she proceeds to launch her fist by first taking a step towards Sebastian with her right foot before she feels the pain of hitting him in his jaw. His head swivels around more than ninety degrees due to the force of the punch, putting him off balance but not before he can press the trigger in Carmelita's direction.

Carmelita wasn't motionless when Penelope made her move, she went straight towards the first accessible cover that was in the protrusion of the closest elevator door. It wouldn't have mattered, Sebastian had turned around to his right due to the punch, causing the shot to also go right, landing in the opposite wall half a metre off the ground whereas Carmelita had sought refuge on the other side. Penelope takes a second swing with her left to further move him towards the wall before kicking at the back of his knee to buckle him and make him fall over onto the ground. She quickly moves in to make sure he doesn't get up or point the pistol. She tries to turn him over to find the pistol while Carmelita rushes to do the same thing. Sebastian eventually lets go of the pistol as they both wrestle it from him. Penelope retrieves it first as Carmelita further ensures that their suspect won't try the same stunt again. It takes less than 5 minutes for the police to arrive to pick up their captured suspect and take him away for more questioning. Penelope had to hide during this process otherwise they might suspect she was involved, at least that's what Carmelita told her.

When the police leave the area, Carmelita goes over to a storage cupboard and unlocks it so Penelope can be let out.

"Thanks." She says as she is let out.

"No problem." Carmelita replies as her shock pistol is given back to her.

"So, what's next?" Penelope asks.

"We…" Carmelita starts but Penelope realizes it's not a good idea.

"Wait! Don't tell me. They'll hear it all." Penelope explains.

"Oh, maybe it's not the best idea for you to come with me then." Carmelita reasons.

"I have an idea, I'll write it down without looking so you can see it but they can't." Penelope explains before going back to the storage cupboard to get a pen and paper. She puts the paper on the desk and turns her head away so she can't see as she writes down the plan. Carmelita takes the paper after Penelope has finished it in order to inspect it's viability.

"This might work." Carmelita says as she looks over it without Penelope seeing before following the first instruction written on it: split up.


	15. Cat and Mouse

**Chapter 15 – Cat and Mouse**

**Luxembourg. 10:34pm, 30****th**** March 2013.**

**Warning: It's a bit graphic as it approaches the latter stages of this chapter.**

Penelope approaches the large wooden front doors of the bank that are more than twice her height, the golden plaque on the left saying the name of this financial institution and on the right the operating hours which is currently not the case. But that's not the operational hours down below, it's a 24 hour service but there are less operators at night due to time zone differences. Only operator's whose agents are in time zones where they would be awake like in America or Australia would be awake, they have to follow their agent's sleeping pattern. Penelope looks at the keypad to unlock the door placed on the right but she doesn't need to do that. The door unlocks remotely for her without her intervention. She looks up at the security camera above, pointing at the front entrance, with distain as she walks inside. She closes the door as it makes a huge thunk on the steel catch that holds the two together.

Penelope turns around and sees the reception desk and looks around in the darkness for any potential traps: people hiding behind the desk, behind the walls or in the elevator, trip wires, silent alarms, loud alarms, many different permutations and combinations of security that would be expected of a bank. However, she encounters none as she enters the plain concrete stairs. Penelope looks up towards the top then down before going up the stairs to the top of the building. She opens the door and sees a few people still at their desks with their multi screen layouts, tracking various financial markets, looking for a quick profit. Penelope takes the right hand turn around the central section of the building and into the office of the CEO. She opens the preliminary door to Thomas's secretary, ignoring her on the way in, and bursts into his office. The fat cat is staring into his computer, looking like he's trying to make sense of something, perhaps a new financial market.

"Mr. Fradel!" Penelope shouts, getting his attention from the computer. Instead of intimidating him like she planned, it had the opposite effect, making him welcome her.

"Penelope!" Thomas says, really happy to see her. "How nice to see you again."

"Sir, sit back down." Penelope commands and the old cat does as she tells him to.

"Alright, calm down. Everything can be sorted out." He rationalizes.

"Your daughter is running a criminal empire right under your feet." Penelope says bleakly, trying to give him a sense of shock and surprise.

"She said that you'd try and say that. But she explained everything to me this evening and, I don't really mind it. It's an ingenious solution to a problem that has raised this companies cash flow and profits without the need to pay tax, frankly I'm not the cleanest person myself with all of the shonky deals I've done over the years. The money is laundered via the bank and I get to pay myself a huge bonus every year for beating the expectations of the board. She didn't get into the fine details of this mind control thing but it makes sense in some way, it's why I haven't needed to fire someone in 4 years." Thomas explains. "I know that you probably wanted revenge when you walked through that door, hoping that I could exert some leverage over my 'out of control' daughter. But after I heard about this, I could only somehow feel proud at her achievements."

Penelope is completely confused about everything that he said. He was supposed to be the puppet, maybe he still is. Still, this isn't the way she had hoped it would end. Penelope would have liked him to storm downstairs and sort his daughter out and close this all internally, but now that he's on board, it makes it a lot harder to stop.

"If you try and go down I won't stop you. But can you please leave now? I want to monitor my New York traders in peace." Thomas asks politely. Penelope walks away dejectedly, knowing that this part of the plan has failed miserably. But it doesn't mean that it's all over and nothing can stop her, everyone has a weakness. Penelope walks back to the stairs and quickly descends the 8 flights of stairs to the very bottom of the concrete shaft where that innocent looking door hides behind it the shocking truth of this place. The card scanner on the right waits for identification, but she has none so she has to wait next to it and hope someone comes out. After a painstaking 6 minutes of waiting in a blind spot where anyone wouldn't see her, she see 4 people exit the room and move up the stairs. She doesn't think of the reason why they have left, but only concentrates on slipping inside the door without impeding it's natural course. The door clicks shut and re arms itself which Penelope sees from the inside as a small red light above the exit button.

Now, Penelope gazes down the corridor and towards the next place of cover where she moves to before stopping, waiting for any sounds or shadows to appear. It continues like this as she work her way around the various bends towards where she thinks the main room is, the place she only saw once. Once she has at the end of the corridor, an artificial glowing light is seen coming from around the corner mainly in a sky blue shade, but it changes in accordance with whatever is being projected by the screens. Penelope inches closer to the corner just to have a peek, with one eye around the wall, she sees one side of the room with it's banks of computer with less than quarter of them being used. She thinks back to what happened when she was last here and remembers the ghost like presence she had in the room, no one noticed her go in as she walked along the slightly raised carpeted walkway before so perhaps it might be the case again. She has no better ideas at this point anyway.

Slowly and quietly, she breaks from cover and climbs the 4 steps to get onto the raised walkway from which she can see the few systems that are functioning. The carpet masks any sound of her footsteps, not that it would have been loud enough for them to hear with their headsets on. When she reaches the other side, the door to Bethany's office is only 3 metres away. Again, she slowly approaches it, but remembers being knocked out when she opened it. So, to combat this, she stands against the wall and reaches out with one arm to grasp the door handle. She turns it quickly and thrusts it forwards before retracting her arm in case it happens again. To her relief, nothing happens, but that relief turns to a feeling of uneasiness due to not know what exactly is inside.

"You don't have to worry about being knocked out again, come inside and sit down." Bethany insists whilst Penelope waits from beside the door to consider this option.

"I promise it's just me inside and I promise that I won't do anything to you. Let's just talk it out before we blow each other to bits." Bethany assures Penelope. The mouse takes a deep breath, before revealing herself from beside the doorframe. Bethany sits forward in her chair, leaning over the table faces directly opposite the door.

"See, It's just me in here." Bethany assures once again as Penelope takes nervous but stable steps towards the desk.

"Sit down." Bethany instructs. Penelope sits on one of the two chairs available, the one on the left.

"You're upset, and that's what I'd think would be the normal emotion would be if I were to find out I was being controlled." Bethany explains. "But, how about we go on our separate ways and not speak of each other again. Like we pretend this never happened."

Penelope becomes deeply disgusted at this attempt to wipe the slate clean so easily. She stands up slowly out of the chair and places both outstretched arms on the table, leaning over as to create dominion over her former captor/employer.

"You expect me… to walk away from this? Like it won't affect me at all in the future?" Penelope asks rhetorically. "I have a direct transmission from inside my head, to your computers. You have been watching me every single second I have had my eyes open, watching me for… for things that will help you, things that you can hang over my head in the future, then I become your puppet again only next time I'll be in less control of myself and be conscious of it at the same time."

"Look at you." Bethany states in false pity. "You can still be beneficial both to yourself and this organization."

"Are you going to buy me out?" Penelope accuses, pre empting the possible option.

"I work for a bank, we tend to acquire assets along the way, assets that will help you complete scientific projects." Bethany explains.

"Money…" Penelope begins to say but she is instantly cut off.

"I know, that money won't be able to buy you since your projects are bankrolled in part by one of the world's wealthiest criminals. So I'm talking influence, in governments, but not high up yet. I have 14 staffers in various governments around the world who have been useful for getting an ear to the ground about what's happening. Need to buy some rare earth minerals from China? How about I suggest that they increase the buying quantity." Bethany explains.

"And how about you stop offering bribes at all. There's only one thing I came for." Penelope shouts.

"My head?" Bethany asks with indifference.

"Your servers, you must have copies of everything I see and hear stored somewhere in this complex." Penelope suggests. "I want all of them destroyed."

"Done." Bethany says without hesitation. Penelope is taken back once again by their lack of resistances to her demands.

"And… and I want you to stop recording everything I hear and see, and also to stop monitoring my vitals." Penelope demands.

"Done." Bethany agrees. Penelope stops and reconsiders what to say next. They must either want to keep her really badly or they don't care what happens to her.

"Is there something you want to tell me about? I mean, you seem very eager to accept all of my demands." Penelope asks.

"Honestly, I think you'll find it hard to not accept a return to our employment. Because, like I said before, we have assets that can turn on you on a moments notice. We may not have many right now but business is booming with the money that skunk gave us, we can afford to get more people in here, more operators."

"You'll need at least one more." Penelope comments.

"Sebastian I presume? What a shame your friend inspector Fox didn't accept that offer. She may find it harder and harder to climb the ladder and pursue crimes with the amount of judges we have in our pocket. They may not be under direct control, but it's the evidence we have hanging over their heads that makes them say 'how high?' when we say 'jump'. We don't need to have the big fish in my pond, just the small fish that all crowd around the big fish, giving us all we need to inform them of our discoveries. Like that, a new asset is acquired. Ms. Fox will have trouble getting any charges past court and her incredible record of arrests will plummet to zero and that's just the damage we can do to her. Don't get me started on you, your boyfriend the genius turtle and that, thug of a hippo." Bethany explains.

"What's the time?" Penelope asks.

"Around 2300 hours." Bethany answers.

"The time, exactly." Penelope asks angrily.

"Does this have to do with that note you gave Ms. Fox? Should we be expecting her soon?" Bethany asks, baiting Penelope into showing her hand as she stands up to leave

"No, It's just I have appointments to go and see some people who would love to hear about this. I'm going to make some neurologists more famous than they would have dreamed of." Penelope casually explains.

"And how would that help?" Bethany asks.

"I'll leave that up to you to figure out." Penelope says as she opens the door to leave. But what she sees on the other side is completely shocking. Carmelita Fox, handcuffed and on the ground with Sebastian standing over her with the shock pistol in his right hand.

"Surprised?" Sebastian asks rhetorically. Penelope can't believe that she would let down her end of the plan of all people to do so. "You shouldn't be, because I have their plan right here." He says as he pulls out the roughly folded piece of paper from his pocket with his left and before unfolding it to inspect it's contents.

"It's says that she would be captured on purpose to get inside the facility." Sebastian explains to Bethany as he walks past the two obstructions in his way to hand over the plan to Bethany. Sebastian leans over the table to discuss the details and walk this through with her. "She would then beg for mercy and resist all attempts to be put into the program or be bribed, the mouse even decided to write down some neat phrases to help prolong the conversation to buy herself some time. Anecdotes of childhood, police stories, making us feel tiny in comparison to others that she had beaten. But, in short, we've got her here and we should proceed with assimilation as soon as possible. An Interpol inspector in our ranks, that's got to help us out significantly."

They both peer over the crudely drawn set of plans to decipher the pictorial descriptions that complement the writing. By the time they have exhausted the usefulness of the piece of paper, what they hadn't realized is that their captives are no longer to be seen. Penelope is no longer standing in the doorway and Carmelita is no longer on the ground bearing handcuffs, they are both gone from their view.

"I'll find them and get them back!" Sebastian shouts as he runs for the exit to search for them. The operators are oblivious to the goings on around them.

Meanwhile, Carmelita and Penelope are going door to door, looking for the server room of the complex. Penelope wants them rendered unusable; file corruption would be the cleanest way to do it but she doesn't have the virus to do that on her. They work backwards from the main area, running to each door and opening it to look for the banks of hard drives and memory boards that would run the computers and store the terabytes of data. There are only a few rooms, most are empty with only a couple of empty boxes with packaging scrunched inside the concrete floored room. Each room looks like its has been renovated recently, the smell of paint is rife in all of them and exposed wires running out of small square holes in the drywall show the unfinished state of them, probably new rooms for new operators. After going through all of the side rooms quickly and quietly, Penelope can come to the only conclusion she feared.

"They're not here." Penelope whispers.

"Are you sure?" Carmelita whispers back.

"They must have a…" Penelope begins to say before Carmelita covers her mouth, having heard fast footsteps coming along the corridor. The vixen spots the closest room and heads for it before shutting the door, giving them near pitch black darkness save for the small amount of light creeping in from under the door.

"What were you saying?" Carmelita whispers to Penelope as they sit in the cold concrete corner inside one of the rooms.

"The servers aren't here, they have to be transmitting the information to somewhere else." Penelope explains.

"And where would that be?" Carmelita asks.

"I don't know." Penelope whispers after a little bit of hesitation. They have nothing to aim for now but escape. Escape would be possible except for the one obstacle waiting just outside the door. He knows which room they are inside and where they are positioned exactly so he knows where to aim with the shock pistol. Carmelita spot the two shadows from under the door coming from Sebastian's legs.

"Stay here, don't look." Carmelita says to Penelope as the inspector creeps along the wall until she waits by the frame of the door next to the hinges with her arms out in front. She sees the door being flung open as hard as possible, she reacts an drives herself forward to slam it shut, pushing it back into the operator and trapping his outstretched arms in the gap still holding onto the shock pistol. Carmelita grips his right and with her own and continues to inflict pain on the forearm by slamming it shut several times, making a bone crushing pain that is hard to subdue, giving way to shouting of pain. Sebastian tries to retract his arm but Carmelita is much stronger than he is, so she continues to whack his arm until he lets go of the pistol by dropping it on the floor. Carmelita gives no mercy, holding the door in place with her leg as she searches for the pistol on the ground. Penelope gets up from the corner, ready to follow Carmelita's lead. The inspector opens the door fully and points the pistol squarely at Sebastian with her finger on the trigger, only a metre away.

"You broke my arm!" He shouts, still writhing in pain as he cups his right arm with his left to support it.

"You're lucky I didn't break more." Carmelita retorts back. Sebastian looks disappointingly at Carmelita, but more disappointingly in herself.

"Now, where are the servers?" Carmelita demands as Penelope watches from behind.

"I don't know." Sebastian casually replies before Carmelita shoots shut short of his feet at the ground, causing him to jump backwards and landing awkwardly against the back wall.

"What's that for?" Sebastian asks, thinking this is too over the top to be threatening him like this.

"The servers." Carmelita reminds Sebastian. 

"Like I said, I don't knooooooooooow!" Sebastian says, But Carmelita steps forward over the blackened floor and squeezes hard on the black patch on his skin, making him drop to his knees in pain before putting his head to the ground in tears, Carmelita still applying the pain hard. Penelope just watches the sheer horror of it all, watching someone being reduced to tears so quickly and effortlessly becomes almost sickening to watch.

"Where are they?!" Carmelita demands once again, giving him precious respite.

"I don't know!" Sebastian answers again with what strength he has left. The same answer is not good enough for Carmelita and once again she applies the devastating pressure onto the break.

"Maybe he can't say where it is?" Penelope wonders out loud, but its barely audible over the screaming.

"What?" Carmelita asks nonchalantly as she continues to subdue Sebastian.

"He can't say it!" Penelope shouts. Carmelita pauses to hear it clearly.

"He can't say anything!" Penelope says, stricken with having to watch so much torture. She had seen planes crash into fireballs with their occupants floating in parachutes, stranded in the air. She had seen engines blow up on the ground, sending shrapnel into those who were nearby. But nothing, nothing was as cruel or as… wrong, as this.

"The control system, it prevents him from turning on his organization." Penelope quickly explains. Carmelita looks into the wet eyes of the operator she had crushed so brutally and now hanging limply from her grasp.

"Get up!" Carmelita commands to Sebastian. Sebastian tries to get up as his legs quake from their weak state, not because his muscles had wasted away, but because he lacks the self control of them as all of his conscious thought is watching that black spot to anticipate further bouts of suffering.

"Follow me!" Carmelita shouts as she begins to pace quickly and gruffly towards Bethany's office. Sebastian initially can't keep up but he quickly catches up, eager not to suffer again as her thumb is hovering over the spot. Penelope goes the other way and opens the door to the complex, where several police officers as well as detectives are waiting on the stairs to enter before catching up to the pair being dragged through the corridors from behind. When Carmelita reaches the office, she knocks politely on the door to let Bethany know she is coming in.

"Come in." Bethany instructs politely before she looks up as the door is kicked in by Carmelita's boot.

"You're under arrest!" Carmelita shouts as she holds Sebastian's broken arm in her left and the pistol pointed at her in her right hand.

"What for?" Bethany asks innocently.

"Live experimentation, people trafficking, kidnapping, bribery…" Carmelita begins to list off.

"I haven't done anything like that, I shall have my day in court." Bethany demands. Behind Carmelita, the police officers and detectives start to enter the main room and discover the extent of it all.

"Tell your innocence to a judge you don't have on your side." Carmelita replies. "Now, arms out"

The handcuffs that Carmelita was previously wearing now get slapped straight on Bethany's wrists just before the end of the suit jacket she is wearing. Carmelita goes to the door of the office and shuts it on the officers who are in the process of arresting the operators sitting at their computers. They had finally noticed what was happening as the officers didn't respect the carpet path in the centre, and thus were able to see the handcuffs being thrown on their wrists as they were each taken out. As people come and go and the number of people inside begins to dwindle, Penelope realizes that it's actually happening. The operation is being taken down, this horrible blip on her life looks like it's disappearing from her eyes, but it won't disappear from her mind. How could one forget doing such heinous and vile acts and yet not be left scarred? However, the sight of the operators being removed brings what little comfort it offers to the mouse. She still has to figure out what to do with the unnatural presence inside her head. What makes her quickly forget about what's happening is the muffled screams coming from the office across the room.

She moves past the several detectives gathering evidence such as photos of the computers and the faces of those being arrested. The shouting and screaming gets louder as she gets closer but as she gets less than 2 metres from the door. She stops in her tracks having heard a shot from the shock pistol being fired and the screaming stopping simultaneously. What she doesn't know is who but she begs to herself that Carmelita hasn't taken this too far or indeed that anyone got hurt at all. What Penelope doesn't do is try to get inside, but instead waits outside, trying to hear what's going on with all of the noise going on outside.

"You, where is he?!" Penelope hears Carmelita shout from near to the door.

"I've run a clean business until you came in here! You'll answer for this!" Bethany shouts back, distraught by the sight at Carmelita's feet.

"Where is he or you're next!" Carmelita shouts with incredible ferocity. Penelope sees no choice but to intervene, but not herself. She sprints straight to the nearest officers to alert them.

"She's going to kill someone, we have to stop her!" Penelope quickly warns two officers. They rush to the door as Penelope watches them, unmoved from where she asked for help. One grabs the door handle and holds a pistol in the other hand, he swings the door open, hitting Carmelita in the process. That single act saves Bethany's life, as Carmelita's shot it drawn wide to the left, hitting the wall a metre off and making a black smudge on the concrete.

"Freeze!" They shout, pointing their guns at Carmelita where she in turn backs down and puts her hands up. Now they both have handcuffs on and are both lead out of the room by the police officers and towards the exit. Penelope can only see the still angry look on Carmelita's face as she is escorted out back to the surface. Penelope can only do but force herself to look at the remnants of what once was for the last time as she too leaves the scene of one of the most devious minds control facilities not seen since MK Ultra, and operating right underneath a bank of all places. Financial institutions have always wanted stability; this may have been a bit too far.


	16. A Second Chance

**Chapter 16 – A Second Chance**

**Paris, France. 5:00am, 1****st**** April 2013.**

Amongst the intense Monday rush hour traffic and the ever-present smell of cigarette smoke in the air, Penelope is waiting. She is waiting for someone, if it's actually possible. Penelope had spent the previous days thinking about what to do next, whether or not to go back to Bentley had used up all of her brainpower. She was worried about the consequences of facing his reaction, which she certainly thought to be bad at best, disastrous at worst. Images of the door never opening and being told to never come back kept on popping up in her mind. Someone so logical and rational such as Bentley seems inversely capable of compassion; Penelope only realized what compassion is about two nights ago. In front of her on the table sits a glass of water that she has had refilled over and over again, something to fidget on as much as anything as she keeps a lookout for the person she is to meet in the crowds of people passing by every second.

Here she comes now, trying to be as anonymous as possible in a tan trench coat to cover all of her police utilities like handcuffs and her badge. Carmelita Fox unassumingly sits down at the chair opposite Penelope.

"You got out?" Penelope asks.

"Not important." Carmelita replies before reaching into her coat and retrieving a yellow A4 sized envelope that looks like it's filed with a lot of papers.

"The case file. They found the severs less than 5 kilometres away in a warehouse, they've been seized so you won't be spied on again." Carmelita says. Penelope unwinds the string, unlatching the two parts and allowing Penelope to look inside. Inside are several legal documents with a large red marking stating 'copy' on each document. Penelope doesn't take any out of the envelope but peers inside, flicking through the various papers before seeing the mountain of photos inside. It's a like a picture has been taken from almost every possible point that could be taken.

"Is this everything?" Penelope asks, still flicking through the contents inside the envelope.

"Everything." Carmelita repeats before looking both ways as if she's looking out for someone.

"Do you need to go?" Penelope asks.

"I never gave you this, you got it yourself." Carmelita instructs as she stands up and leaves the café, walking off somewhat quickly and getting mixed in with the crowd to hide herself from who ever is chasing her. She's a Interpol agent, probably with as many enemies as Sly so it's no surprise someone would prefer she ceased to exist.

"Excuse-moi mademoiselle, would you like to order something?" A passing waiter asks. Penelope shuts the envelope.

"No thanks, I was about to leave." Penelope replies. The waiter continues on and Penelope goes in the other direction, into the footpath and the afternoon crowds. Holding the envelope tightly in her right hand, she begins to look for a place to stay the night. A consultation of a map tells her where to go, a trip in the underground metro, a short walk thereafter and she arrives at her destination, an apartment building. Penelope gazes up to the balcony to the top floor, everything is shut, the curtains are drawn and the blinds are down. She looks back down at the keypad to get inside and strains her minds in remembering the combination. She has never been to this place but a long time ago, she thinks, the combination would have been told to her. Holding the envelope in her left hand, she reaches out slowly with her right at the keypad with one finger extended, wondering what number to press first. Somewhat nervously, she reaches to the number seven. A single beep signals that she has pressed a button but not it if it's correct or not. The next two buttons are quickly pressed, hinging on an idea. 5 then 9 are pressed, but with a four number combination, she wonders what the last would be but 5 seconds later, she presses the number two and the door unlocks and a green light turns on. Penelope goes inside just as a cool breeze came rushing down the road, all the while she was being watched.

The inside of this place, it's quite unkept with the wooden staircase flaking from a small amount of water damage and the endless dints and knocks it's taken over the years. The floorboards creak slightly, even louder on the stairs like a feather couldn't make it up here silently. All the lights are turned off so the only light comes from the small windows at each landing. As she climbs past the second floor, a thought comes into her mind of how wrong it is going to this place. She wasn't invited or was asked to come here nor she has done the other way around, but this place…. Penelope hesitates, seizing up about three steps from the third floor, with a great amount of doubt about continuing on. With very little money on her, not enough to sleep in a hotel, it was either going to a youth hostel or come here. Spurred on by the fear of feeling of being cold all night and unable to sleep, she continues on climbing, past the third floor apartment entrance, noticeably better maintained than the other two doors she saw on the way up. The next door, almost commands it's own sort of reverence because of what's behind it.

Taking a deep breath, she reaches out to the door handle and tries to open it but it's locked as she expected it to be. So she begins to look for a spare key, there would have had to have one nearby. Penelope looks up at the doorframe and thinks that a key could be resting on top. Because of her short stature, Penelope can't simply reach for it; even with her outstretched arm it would take another half a metre to touch the top. Penelope jumps up as high as possible, swinging her hand across to cover as much of the ledge as possible, but feels no cold metal key. She jumps again, half a metre to her left to reach for another bit of the ledge but still there is no cold touch on her fingers. Then, she stops instantly and doesn't move a single muscle. She has heard a sound she didn't think was possible, footsteps on the inside, casually walking towards the door. It's… it's not possible, she thinks to herself. Her next thought is trying to hide somewhere, but there is no hiding place. She has no choice but to confront the impossible, the improbable and the unimaginable. They get really close to the door, two shadows of someone's feet from behind the door. Penelope's heart starts beating faster from the adrenaline rush and nervousness of the situation as her eyes continue to look for a place for the body to hide. The lock is unlocked and she sees the faded door handle begins to turn slowly but firmly until the door begins to open.

It swings open, and Penelope doesn't know what to feel about the outcome.

It's Carmelita, not Sly Cooper as she thought, not wearing the trench coat anymore. Either way, it makes her ask herself a lot of questions.

"Penelope?" Carmelita answers as she sees the uninvited guest at the door.

"But… I… no." Penelope mutter, her mind having descended into confusion.

"You thought?" Carmelita says.

"Yeah." Penelope mutters in a hush tone.

"Me too." Carmelita answers in the same tone as she tries to suppress unwanted emotions. They stand opposite to each other, just waiting for someone to say something.

"Do you want to, come inside?" Carmelita asks. Penelope begins to take slow steps forward, admiring the purple wallpaper with golden fleur de lys's on the wall, even if it's not in the best condition. She follows the vixen down the short and dark corridor before turning to the right to show the main area, still in the state it was left the last time it was used. The table, strewn with pieces of blueprint papers and various other pieces of gadgetry; the ground beneath, with even more pieces of paper and pieces of rubbish or broken parts. Penelope watches Carmelita sit down tiredly on one of the well-worn couches and staring at the items on the table like they mean something to her that's more than the face value. Penelope doesn't know what to do with herself apart from watching her intently stare into nothingness.

"Sit." Carmelita commands as she notices Penelope's uneasiness. She walks over to the other couch and sits opposite Carmelita with the table in between; the cushions seem soft and yet hard at the same time. Carmelita then holds silence as Penelope wait for her to say something, but then the boredom ensures so she decides to open the envelope and empty it's contents. Pieces of papers spew out of the envelope as well as the photos. She takes a look at some herself in detail to see if they match what she remembers.

"Have you called?" Carmelita asks, somewhat out of the blue.

"Who?" Penelope asks but realises what she means.

"Him." Carmelita replies. Penelope shakes her head slowly; it's a subject she doesn't know what course of action she should take.

"You need to tell him everything, to make it right again, or you'll end up like me. Filled with unquenchable vengeance." Carmelita explains, on this highly emotional subject, she begins to stutter her words in between bouts of grief for the person she loves that is no longer here, whether that may be in this life or the next.

"I can't keep myself together… It's, it's soul destroying. Working seems to be the only way to take it off my mind, at least temporarily. I wish I could have taken his hand and dragged him off the airship, or even, I would rather be… wherever he is right now. I should have gone with him and now I can't live with myself. But, you. You can fix this, you have to tell Bentley, to take a risk… so that you can at least try. If you really want to be with him and apologise, you have to tell him what happened. Because, It would make me feel, dead, if you decided to not at least try. If I had only one more chance to get Sly back, I would take it with both arms. You, just think about, what may and what may not happen, but not what will happen." Carmelita explains.

"I don't have…" Penelope slowly begins to say.

"No excuses." Carmelita snaps angrily with misplaced anger as she stand up to dominate the room. "You have a chance, If Sly was merely a phone call away, it wouldn't have taken me 2 days to pick it up and call."

Penelope is taken back by the somewhat unsurprising ferocity of Carmelita's potent anger.

"I'm sorry. I can't stop myself being angry at it all, at how helpless I am. And, about your… friend Sebastian, that was, unprofessional, taking revenge on him like that before his death. I have to stop, I can't keep on killing criminals, hoping that it will bring me comfort. Your friend's death hasn't changed a thing and yet, I am so lucky to even be employed. I had to pull so many strings and agree to a good behaviour bond. But when, Sly, returns. I won't care if I have to do anything to reach him, because he's worth it." Carmelita says.

"Where's the phone?" Penelope asks. Carmelita reaches into her pocket and tosses her mobile phone and Penelope dials in a number, Bentley's number. She looks at the phone dialling before pressing it against her ear, listening for the moment the dial tone stops and a real voice takes over. The dial tone stops and nothing replaces it.

"Carmelita." Bentley answers.

"Hello?" Penelope answers. There is nothing on the other end.

"Bentley?" Penelope asks again for a response, whether she wants a response is another question.

"Are you there?" Penelope asks hopefully. Still the phone call hasn't finished or been ended by Bentley or Penelope. The first sound she hears on the other side is a partially muffled exhale from the turtle, but she can hear it.

"Please, say something." Penelope begs. Bentley doesn't say anything, so Penelope decides just to explain it all with being prompted.

"It's long story." She begins apologetically. "I was kidnapped, I didn't run away. And I didn't want to do those things, but, I was… I was… being used. They had mind control and could hear and see everything I said or heard. I was sold to Le Paradox to build a time machine. I never… ever… thought, that it would be this bad or that Sly would be gone because of me."

There is a pause, an agonisingly drawn out pause, but as long as the call is going, there is hope.

"Ok." Bentley responds sceptically. "I hope I'm not making a mistake when I say this, but… come by the lab when it's possible. Then I can see if your claims are true and whether it's possible for us to be together in the same room. Where are you now?"

"I'm in Paris." Penelope says.

"You're… there. In the hideout." Bentley says.

"You're tracing this call?" Penelope asks.

"It's Carmelita's phone, she comes here every day after work just to try and be with him, or what imagination she has of him, before going to search for clues to where he is." Bentley explains.

"I couldn't do anything else but… what I did." Penelope says, trying to defend herself against indefensible outcomes.

"Like I said, I hope I'm not making a huge mistake. But, there's a train leaving Paris at 6:58pm that comes here if you want to explain yourself. If you're at the lab tonight, then I know that you want to repent." Bentley warns.

"I'll be there." Penelope insists. The phone hangs up and Penelope can feel a hint of relief amongst the cautious internal celebration.

"I have to leave." Penelope says.

"He'll give you a chance?" Carmelita asks.

"I hope so." Penelope replies. "Oh, can I borrow some money for a train ticket. I kind of have no money on me."

"There's money everywhere in this place, it's Sly's hideout for goodness sake." Carmelita answers, it reminds her of how resourceful he always was, usually to her detriment. "Check the seat cushion."

Penelope stand up and lifts the sofa cushion she was sitting on to find the zipper. She unzips the fabric case and reaches in to find something stored inside, a briefcase. Penelope pulls it out and unlocks it, it's filled with 500 euro notes bundled together in lots of one hundred thousand, definitely enough for a train ticket, even first class.

"Useful." Penelope notes as she takes four notes, totalling 2000 euros, from a single bundle and puts it back inside the case.

"Take the bundle, in fact, take the briefcase." Carmelita insists. Penelope feels uneasy about taking so much money from Sly's hideout, especially with Carmelita around.

"When you blacked out, Sly was the least inclined to help. But, if he was here, I think he would have wanted you to be back with Bentley. I mean you were much better as friends than enemies, and it's not like that amount of money is significant the scheme of things for Sly. There's probably more money in the other cushions, under the floorboards and in the walls." Carmelita says.

Penelope puts the four notes inside the briefcase and locks it up again before replacing the seat cushion. Penelope looks out at the setting sun before turning to leave the apartment.

"I hope you get your chance soon." Penelope says before she goes out of Carmelita's sight. For now, there's no use speculating about what may or may not happen. But instead, she focuses on will happen. A meeting with Bentley, an opportunity to make things back to the way they were. If it fails, she doesn't know what to do next, she has no second plan unlike when they sieged the bank. She had two plans, one distracted them for long enough so they could escape. The other plan, the real plan, never left the cubicle she wrote it in.

But to hell with failure! She has millions in her hand. There is no time for thinking of such a thought, not when he is a train ride away.

Unlike Sly.

* * *

**Author's Note (25 Feb 2014): So, that's the end. If you thought there'd be another chapter after this then you've just realised what a cliffhanger is, but then again if you played 'Thieves in Time' you should all be very familiar with the concept. Anyway, three things I want to say at the end of this story. Firstly, I'm starting university next week so naturally I'll have less time to write fanfics. This does NOT mean that I am stopping for now, the pace I write will just be slower, that's all. Secondly, The next story I'm working on will be the follow on from 'Hide and Seek' and will be the third in the series unless I have the urge to post a one-shot. Thirdly, and probably most importantly, I would like to thank bravekid for all of the reviews for each chapter and continued support from start to finish including the main ideas of the story which I helped to build on and turn into a workable story.**

**If you have any questions, queries or concerns; I'm just a PM away.**

**-Olirulz111**


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